REPOST: A Big Trip for the Ladies Cancelled

We are re-printing three older posts this week.  
We think they are humorous and typical of more than 100 post on this blog.

“There’s a sign in Polonia Hall in Kensington,” says funny guy Joe Conklin...

“It reads: ‘The Ladies Auxiliary Trip to the Islands has Been Cancelled...

...Because SEPTA has Removed the Islands from the Middle of Allegheny Avenue.’’

REPOST: The Case of The Ominous Bag

We are re-printing three older posts this week.  
We think they are humorous and typical of more than 100 post on this blog.

 

Tony Draus was raised in rural Pennsylvania. He knew that Philadelphia had a lot of crime and street-corner drug dealing. 

Tony was driving into the city to visit a college roommate and stopped at a red light, when he noticed a tough-looking character brazenly approaching motorists, offering to sell something hidden in brown bags.

Tony rolled up his car windows, checked to see that his doors were locked and ignored the drug dealer’s tap on his window. He sped off when the light changed and later told his Philadelphia friend about the experience.

The Philadelphian explained that the man was not a drug dealer. The brown bags contained soft pretzels.

REPOST: True Tale of a Philly Travel Agency

We are re-printing three older posts this week.  
We think they are humorous and typical of more than 100 post on this blog.

Only In Philadelphia: True Tale of a Philly Travel Agency

It Really Happened...

Peggy Morrison tells of an incident when she worked at a Center City travel agency:

A dark-skinned foreigner came into the office and asked one of the travel agents about a flight to Upper Darby.

The perplexed agent tried his best to explain that Upper Darby was less than 10 miles away. “There are no flights to Upper Darby. Just take the Market Street El train. It will get you to Upper Darby.”

The man with the thick accent kept insisting there were flights to Upper Darby.

Finally, someone in the office realized the man wanted to go to Abu Dhabi.

Opera Author’s Visit To America Deemed ‘Disastrous’

Pietro Mascagni

From the minute the “Great Maestro” and opera composer Pietro Mascagni started his American tour until he returned to Italy following a “nervous collapse”, fiasco followed fiasco. You might say the tour was a “Comic Opera.”

It was 1902 and Mascagni was quite famous for Cavalleria Rusticana, an opera featuring love, hate and murder. He was also an orchestra conductor.

He arrived in New York with his own orchestra, singers and chorus. Except there were not enough musicians and there were constant union problems with American musicians.

On the same ship that carried Mascagni was General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army. This prompted a “battle of the bands”, with exuberant Italian-American bands on the dock competing with Salvation Army bands, belting out hymns.

In every city, Mascagni changed the advertised programs. So, those who bought tickets for a certain opera got either a different opera or the performance was totally cancelled.

His next stop was Philly, where 5,000 Italian immigrants gave the maestro an enthusiastic welcome at Broad Street Station. “The impetuous Latins swarmed about, embraced him fondly and shouted ‘Viva Mascagni,’” wrote the Inquirer.

Everywhere he went, Mascagni got a warm welcome and “good riddance” after a week.

That first evening at the Academy of Music – after a long wait - he conducted the orchestra and following a late reception the maestro went to his room in the nearby Walton Hotel. However, no one had made any sleeping arrangements for the musicians and singers. Some fell asleep in the green room but 30 to 40 others walked out to Broad Street at 2 a.m. Only one tavern was open but the owner and his sister managed to find places in rooming houses for the visitors.

Every performance started late. He changed the program three times in one day. One time there was a one-hour pause during the intermission.

He was going to introduce his latest opera, “Iris” in Philadelphia. People purchased tickets and were livid when it didn’t happen.

The Italian societies organized a banquet for Mascagni in South Philly. Everyone showed up but the guest on honor.

Audiences grew smaller. There was carping reviews by the critics.

A few days after he left town, newspapers ran a headline “Blows Out His Brains. Young Man Commits Suicide After Hearing Mascagni.” The 19-year-old Drexel student loved Rusticana and might have heard the maestro at the Academy of Music. He had his mother play his favorite section of the opera on her piano. He Immediately went into his bedroom and killed himself.

In Boston, Mascagni got into legal hassles with creditors and was briefly placed under arrest. The Italian ambassador was called into the fray.

At one point, his orchestra went on strike declaring it had not been paid. He fired different Americans managing the tour. He canceled engagements. At one point in Chicago, an American orchestra and Mascagni’s Italian orchestra both came to practice.

In Chicago, a former American manager charged Mascagni embezzled $5,000. Then his personal property was attached by constables for another alleged $126 debt. When he was arrested by the Chicago constables in front of friends, it was the last straw.

The next day a Chicago newspaper headline read: “Disastrous American Tour of Pietro Mascagni Cancelled.” The story said he collapsed after being released on bail “suffering from nervous exhaustion.”

The planned four-month tour of America ended in two-months.

We Gather Here to Honor a Great Philadelphian

 

Governments often pass proclamations honoring important people such as distinguished visitors, philanthropists, hero citizens, police. Philadelphia City Council seems to the first city ever to pass a resolution to honor a silly costume.

The costume has a name: Gritty. It’s the mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers and since Gritty was born last September, it has been mocked and remarked upon endlessly.

The resolution, prepared by Councilperson, Helen Gym, tells the story of Gritty with such charm and wit, that we have decided to print it in its entirety.

 A RESOLUTION 

Welcoming Gritty, the new mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers, and honoring the spirit and passion that Gritty has brought to the City of Philadelphia and to the entire country, both on and off the ice.

WHEREAS, Gritty was introduced to an unprepared world as the Philadelphia Flyers’ new mascot on September 24, 2018, but his true age and origins remain cloaked in obscurity. His official bio merely notes that it was recent construction at the arena that disturbed his secret hideout and forced him to show his face publicly for the first time; and

WHEREAS, Gritty has been described as a 7-foot tall orange hellion, a fuzzy eldritch horror, a ghastly empty-eyed Muppet with a Delco beard, a cross of Snuffleupagus and Oscar the Grouch, a deranged orange lunatic, an acid trip of a mascot, a shaggy orange Wookiee-esque grotesquerie, a non-binary leftist icon, an orange menace, a raging id, and an antihero. He has been characterized as huggable but also potentially insurrectionary, ridiculous, horrifying, unsettling, and absurd; and

WHEREAS, The television host John Oliver opened one of his eponymous HBO shows by stating he would have preferred to spend the entire show on Gritty and now uses him as a symbol of something “hostile, consistently unsettling, temperamentally unpleasant and that screams who the [...] allowed this to happen”; and

WHEREAS, When Gritty floated from the rafters of the Wells Fargo Center to the tune of Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball” on October 9, 2018, he also floated into our hearts and minds, weaving his googly-eyed stare, maniacal smile, and passion for hockey and hot dogs into our deep subconscious; and

WHEREAS, Gritty’s storied arrival into Philadelphia was met with all the expected magnanimity of a city with a reputation for colorful and ardent fans and a creative, if skeptical, media, but as soon as Philadelphians realized non-Philadelphians were also mocking Gritty, we rose immediately to his defense and irrevocably claimed him as our own; and

WHEREAS, Philadelphians have already demonstrated their creative, if occasionally jarring, love for Gritty by putting his inimitable face on protest signs, tip jars, wedding cakes, and tattoos; and

WHEREAS, At the same time that Gritty brings people together, the divisions in our current political and cultural life have rendered Gritty contested territory. Gritty has been widely declared antifa, and was subject to attempted reclamation in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal. It has been argued that he “conveys the absurdity and struggle of modern life under capitalism” and that he represents a source of joyful comic respite in a time of societal upheaval; and

WHEREAS, A man who inked Gritty’s face onto his leg captured the feelings of countless Philadelphians: “At first, I was disgusted. I was like, what the hell is this? Why did you do this? Why is this a thing? It was like an hour after that I fell in love with him”; and

WHEREAS, Gritty’s National Hockey League debut, featuring a bottoms-up fall onto the ice, is a metaphor for the vulnerability that each of us face as we, too, skate onto the slippery ice that is life; and

WHEREAS, When the Pittsburgh Penguin took to social media and mocked Gritty for his appearance, Gritty responded, “Sleep with one eye open tonight, bird.” Gritty, like our steadfast\ commitment to justice in the face of adversity, will not be mocked or stopped; and

WHEREAS, As there is a small part of every Philadelphian embedded in the soul of Gritty, he is never alone. Gritty joins a renowned cadre of Philadelphia sports mascot colleagues that will teach him how to keep the spirits of Philadelphia sports fans high despite our inevitable misery. Together, the Phanatic, Franklin the Dog, Swoop, and now Gritty will remind us that even in the face of defeat, Philadelphia is Philadelphia because of the brotherly love, sisterly affection, and monsterly spirit that binds us together in confronting anyone who dares to speak critically of our beloved city; and

WHEREAS, While the initial reaction to Gritty’s entry into the public eye was negative, he has persevered and become an icon of hope and resistance. As Flyers COO Shawn Tilger explained after Gritty’s unveiling, “Seeing the strong positive reaction of 600 excited young students...we know we did the right thing”; and

WHEREAS, Gritty may be a hideous monster, but he is our hideous monster; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the Council of the City of Philadelphia welcomes Gritty, the new mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers, and honors the spirit and passion that Gritty has brought to the City of Philadelphia and to the entire country, both on and off the ice.

Helen Gym
Councilmember At Large
October 25, 2018

Think the Roller-Derby Girls Are Nasty. Meet Some TV News Women

Alysia Lane and Colleen Campbell

On air, Philly’s female anchors and TV reporters are always attractive, sweet, pleasant.

Off camera, they can transform into the Vixens of Hell.

When the news ladies are mean and nasty they are really nasty.
Let us cite two examples:
former PHL 17’s foul-mouthed Colleen Campbell and KYW’s cop- punching, sex-pot Alysia Lane.

Lane, you might remember, had a torrid romance with fellow newsperson, Larry Mendte. He got into trouble with the law for hacking into her e-mails. But sweet Alysia got arrested in New York City for punching a female cop in the face and shouting: “I am a reporter! You fucking dyke bitch.”
 
Campbell was taken out of the Helium Comedy Club by a cop for being loud. The poor cop wanted to let Colleen go free but she had other things in mind. She used the F-word so often in her recorded tirade that we are embarrassed to quote more than one sentence of the five-minute rant: “Lick my
asshole mother f—ker.” Of course, Colleen also told the surprisingly calm cop that she was a TV reporter!

Both ranting reporters felt that once the cops knew they were exulted “celebrities” the officers would start quaking in fear. In fact, the charges were downgraded in court for both divas and they merely got a slap on the wrist.

Another disgrace involved Nichole Brewer, former KYW anchor and MISS AMERICA CONTESTANT! Yes, a celebrity and a bona-fide beauty! As far as we know, the pulchritudinous Miss Brewer never struck or cursed-out a cop, but she so-hated weather reporter, Carol Erickson that she hurled insults at Erickson on-air. Both ladies are now gone from KYW.

Is there something about Philly that turns sweet young women into nasty, aggressive creeps? We think our rough-edged city is not entirely culpable.

We believe being born pretty (or handsome) confers life-long privileges. Being special is magnified a thousand-fold when you become a TV “star” with a handsome salary. How can one avoid arrogance?

Trying to Score a Touchdown in the Violin Section

That two Ivy League football teams could play to a no-score 0-0 tie is unusual.
Even more unusual was the place where the game was played: the Academy of Music. 

The contest between Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania in 1889 might have been the first indoor football contest in America.

Of course, the grand old Academy was built for opera, ballet, concerts and lectures, but some surprising events also took place. There were no more football games but there was a track meet that same year. After the track meet, the audience was treated to a wrestling match and boxing demonstration.

So how can you play a football game or run sprits and jump hurdles in a concert hall?

The answer lies in the main floor called the parquet. Apparently high supports or trestles were placed around the seats and a temporary floor put on top of the supports creating a flat floor level with the stage.

All this effort was not for sports. Many high-society balls were held at the Academy. So the raised floor was for the waltzes and fox trots.

Even more odd than football and track was a fire prevention measure. We quote from John Francis Marion’s book on the Academy:
“When the parquet was floored over, and smoking allowed, the Academy employed a corps of tiny people who scurried around beneath the flooring, picking up matches, cigars and cigarettes that had fallen between the sections of the flooring.”

The Presidential Candidate and the Russian Guru

Wallace and Roerich

Ok. You amateur detectives and code-breakers, try to decipher this:

Dear Guru, I have been thinking of you holding the casket – the sacred most precious casket. And I have thought of the New Country going forth to meet the seven stars under the sign of the three stars. And I have thought of the admonition “Await the Stone.”
 
It’s part of a letter that continues in this weird vain and is signed by “Galahad.”

In 1948, “Galahad” was a candidate for president of the United States, giving his first press conference here in Philadelphia at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. The candidate was Henry Wallace, former vice president and former secretary of agriculture under Franklin D. Roosevelt.

According to one author that press conference left Wallace’s “candidacy a tattered ruin.”

Westbrook Pegler, a sardonic syndicated columnist had obtained about 20 of these strange, coded “Guru letters” that Wallace had written in the 1930s to Russian artist and mystic Nicholas Roerich.

On the one hand, Wallace was a highly educated agronomist and economist whose many accomplishments included developing the first commercial hybrid corn. But Wallace was also a religious seeker. He swallowed whole the occult mysticism of Tibet, India and China as taught by Roerich.

So, as Wallace faced the reporters the night before his new Progressive Party would nominate him for president, there were two big questions:
Was Wallace a Communist and what on earth did the “Guru letters” mean?

Wallace refused to denounce the support of the American Communist Party and no matter how many times reporters asked and badgered him about the Guru letters, he side-stepped the issue.

Finally, when the esteemed writer H.L Mencken asked about the mysterious letters, Wallace said, “I’ll handle this in my own way at my own time.”

In his column the next day, Pegler repeatedly referred to Wallace as “Old Bubblehead” and “Mortimer Snerd.” He called the letters “imbecilic” and “goofy.” The Inquirer’s front page headline read “Wallace Dodges Ties to Communists, But Accepts Red Support.”
 
Needless to say, Wallace did not win a single electoral vote in the presidential race and less than three percent of the popular vote. Philly had scored the trifecta in 1948 with the Democrats, GOP and
Progressives all holding their convention here. All avoided Philly for the next 50 years. We will explain in a future post.

One last word about the Guru Letters. They had first emerged in 1940 after it was too late for FDR to dump Wallace. Roosevelt handled the situation by letting the Republican know that if they released the letters, he would expose the extra-marital affairs of Republican candidate Wendell Willkie.

So, the Guru letters disappeared for four years and Willkie’s alleged love affair remained secret.

Monkeys Escape Zoo and News Reporters Go Ape

Those of a certain age remember Monkey Island at the Philadelphia Zoo.

Perhaps a few, remember the three great monkey escapes in 1940, 1945 and 1954.

There was something amusing and charming about a bunch of little monkeys escaping the Zoo and cavorting through West Philly and Fairmount Park with a posse of cops, firemen and zookeepers in hot pursuit.

About 50 rhesus monkey lived surrounded by a moat of water and a steep seven-foot wall. Standing atop the wall and water were visitors tossing peanuts and candy. Two Great Escapes occurred while the moat was drained to allow cleaning.

Monkeys on the run provided the perfect opportunity of news reporters who fancied themselves great wits and punsters to “go ape.” The May 1940 Inquirer story called those trying to round up the monkeys “great white hunters. It was the mightiest safari since Spencer Tracy found Dr. Livingston.”

One monkey  was captured in a West Philly taproom “and by the time firemen arrived he was playing the pinball machine.” 

Monkeys caught along the railroad tracks wanted to “hop a freight for the Congo.”

We counted 25 lame jests in this one story. One monkey died “emulating Santa Claus” by jumping down a chimney. Another corny quip had the monkeys captured with “butterfly nets, flypaper and putting salt on their tails.”

Only 13 monkeys escaped in 1940 and all were rounded-up in one day.

In 1945, 19 monkeys went on the lam when they got a wooden board and used it as bridge to cross the moat. It took six days to round them all up. The last one captured was sitting on top of George Washington’s statue in front of the Art Museum.

There were far fewer attempts at newspaper humor in 1945 when four monkeys escaped. These escapees scared motorists on what was then called the West River Drive. They played on the Girard Avenue Bridge and then returned to the zoo where they were lured into a ladies’ room with bananas and caught.

Pet monkeys sometimes escaped in the city. A rather large variety of monkey was jumping around on the rooftops of Montrose Street in South Philadelphia. Three SPCA workers were trying to net him while about 200 spectators cheered for the monkey.

The Inquirer writer couldn’t resist a little joke. After its capture, the SPCA guys “put a belt around his hands – probably to prevent him from signing a movie contract with Tarzan.”

Needless to say, headline writers got the phrase “monkey business” into all the escape stories.

Which Philadelphia Gets the Credit for Cream Cheese?

Cream cheese has a mysterious origin

Here’s how to impress your friends with your vast storehouse of knowledge. 
Ask why it’s called “Philadelphia” brand cream cheese.
 
They’ll probably answer that its origins are either in the city or near Philadelphia.
This is where you smirk and loudly declare “wrong!”
 
Start by telling them there are 17 towns in the United States named “Philadelphia.”

One of those Philadelphias is in upstate New York and it was in this area that cream cheese was developed and eventually became famous.

For decades the people in Philadelphia, N.Y., (population 2,000) felt slighted and angry because most people believed wrongly that the brand was named for the Quaker City.

Years ago Kraft put out an information sheet crediting the upstate New York village for the name. When the village clerk was contacted by the Daily News a few years back, she was miffed that Philadelphia, New York, didn’t get credit.

However, very recently, research placed the dairy that first used the name Philadelphia Cream Cheese in Chester, N.Y. This small town is quite a distance from Philadelphia, New York. It’s more-or-less in the Catskills.

The owner of the Chester dairy has been dead for decades, so we will never know for sure why he used the name Philadelphia for his product.

Going Postal For Hanukkah

Retired Daily News reporter Frank Dougherty always has a joke or jest to share. He sent this little gem to his Jewish friends around the Hanukkah holiday.

“My neighbor, Ruth Cohen, went to the East Falls post office on Ridge Avenue earlier this week to purchase stamps for her Hanukkah cards.

“‘I need 50 Hanukkah stamps,’ said Ruth.

"’What denomination?’ asked the postal clerk.

“Ruth told me she thought for a second, then said: ‘Give me six Orthodox, 12 Conservative and 32
Reform.’”

Helping Our Poor First Lady Buy New Shoes

What could Melania Trump do with an extra $1,000 a month? 
She might buy a pair of shoes or, perhaps, acquire a new raincoat to paint slogans.

The question of the extra grand arises thanks to the last will and testament of Philadelphian Henry G. Freeman Jr., who died in 1917.

Freeman, a lawyer and real estate investor, wrote a will saying that after his children and other beneficiaries die, his estate would go for various good causes. And one of those causes was presidential First Ladies.

Freeman, a millionaire, believed Presidents were poorly paid. To help out, his will created the “Henry G. Freeman Pin Money Trust” for presidential spouses to spend anyway they wished.

You’d have to be an estate lawyer and know all about trusts and tricky wills to figure out the many complications in Freeman’s will. It appears that the Pin Money Fund didn’t kick-in until Barbara Bush was First Lady. Michelle Obama only received a few checks. It’s not that the trust ran dry, but there are technical difficulties.

Those few First Ladies who received the annual $12,000 stipend all donated it to charity.

We’re not sure if Melania Trump is getting her monthly pin money. But if she does get a $1,000 monthly check, it probably gives her a good laugh. A report from her trip to Africa claims Melania and her entourage spent $100,000 for one night in a Cairo hotel.