Philadelphia, Meet Your Future

Through the site, Sweeney takes wide and sometimes nasty swipes. Popular targets are Philly Philebrities, like author Jennifer Weiner: "a walking Cathy cartoon" and a member of the "Frump Nation … sweatpants punditry" who writes "Haagen Das" [sic] literature. And then, of course, there are the TV news personalities: During Monica Malpass's unexplained absence not long ago, Sweeney speculated she was "sent back to the ­helmet-haired robot factory from whence she sprang." "Cherie Bank, God love her, is too fat these days to be doling out health advice." (For more from Sweeney, see Philebrity's greatest hits.)

The word Philebrity, Sweeney says, has been in local parlance for some time; it's a bit of playful condescension to describe the tiny group of people who are the fixtures of the rather embarrassing Philly celebrity scene: "It could be Ed Rendell, it could be Danny Bonaduce, it could be somebody from some small band, it could be the hot girl you see everywhere."

Or, it could nowadays very well be Joey Sweeney. Which, of course, is the point. Strike a pose, adopt a persona. Do it in style. And rage. Joey's got his reasons.



A FIFTH-GENERATION Philadelphian, Joey Sweeney was born in 1972, the son of 16-year-old Paula Tuno and her 17-year-old boyfriend Joe Sweeney, both lifelong Fishtown kids. Pregnant Paula was expelled from Hallahan Catholic. (She finished later at Kensington.) Joe Sr. attended North Catholic. Like many in Fishtown, Joe Sr. eventually got seduced by drugs. His life unraveled, as did his short-lived marriage to Joey's mom, and he fell out of his son's life for a while.

Music became unusually important to Joey early on. A pivotal moment came one night when he was just six. His 22-year-old mother, a nurse assistant, was at work, and he was sitting in his grandmother's basement with his two aunts — 14 and 16, respectively — who were listening to Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run. Sweeney would write years later — in a piece published on Salon.com and written mostly in the third person — that at this moment, at six years old, he had an epiphany: You can use music in your brain to make all the awful things that are happening to you somehow romantic and character-building and, better than all of this, cool in a way that will, one day at least, show up all the kids who, even this early on, are calling you a faggot and a sissy. Through this rock music, thinks Sweeney, you will show them. It will add a romantic dimension to your life by making it explode with light and music; it will add layers to what is now bare. It will cover things up. It will make boo-boo better.