Wawa, R.I.P: The Wawa at 20th and Locust will close its doors forever after tonight. Mourners are encouraged to head on over there and get yourself a shorti one more time to pay respects. [Inquirer]

Teach your children well: A Collegeville teacher has been dismissed due to his unnerving obsession with a 13-year-old female student he’d been e-mailing. A sample: “If you show me a pict of you in your uniform, I’ll show you one of me in my Cub Scout uniform.” [CBS 3]

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Even though anchorprincess Alycia Lane has been vindicated in the alleged cop-slugging, dyke-slurring incident last December that ended her Eyewitness tenure over at CBS 3, gay cops are still pissed. New York’s comic-book-ready Gay Officers Action League is “outraged and deeply concerned” that prosecutors lessened charges to two misdemeanor-level offenses.

Thomas Verni, lead GOAL spokesman, issued this statement to Newsday:

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TASTE DAILY: Paul Newman turns vintner

GOOD LIFE DAILY: Organization never looked so good

WEDDING: How far will our bride-to-be go for lip color that lasts?

 
If all goes according to plan, the Philadelphia Phillies could have the most formidable players’ wives section in all of baseball. The staff itself might be lackluster, but the wives? Stellar.

Those are the hopes and dreams of many an ogling fan this spring based on yesterday’s masterful pitching performance by Rule 5 draft attendee Travis Blackley. The ex-Giant pitched three scoreless innings, striking out two and picking off one, as the Phillies opened up Grapefruit League action by shellacking the Cincinnati Reds 8-1.

More important, if Blackley continues to pitch like this, the Phillies will have no choice but to sign him, which would mean his buxom, clothes-shedding wife, Arynne Tiller Blackley (top left; modesty courtesy of Larry Platt egg heads), will help twirl cotton candy at Phillies Wives’ charity events with the likes of Cole Hamels’s wife, Survivor temptress Heidi Strobel (right), and headline-grabbing strumpet Anna Benson this season.

Goosebumps … in your pants.

Phil’s Blackley warms to the occasion [Delaware Online]
Wedding of Arynne and Travis Blackley [YouTube]

Comcast gets caught deck-stacking: The cable giant — accused of paying attendees to fill up seats at a public hearing in Boston to prevent angrier, more vocal ones from attending — admitted its plan, but claimed there was no sliminess involved: A representative said the 30-plus members paid to be there were “just saving seats.” [Inquirer]

Is it really going to help at this point?: Ex-prez Bill Clinton will rumble through the University of Pennsylvania with the best intentions to somehow help his wife win the Democratic nomination. Clinton is supposed to have a rally-the-troops meeting today with some of Hill’s most prominent Pa. supporters; attendees include usual suspects Gov. Rendell and Mayor Nutter. [Inquirer]

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Today’s Daily Examiner quip comes courtesy of the PhillyBurbs fitness blog, which asks an interesting question: Can gym management tell people they smell? Though it goes unanswered, the author’s reasoning behind the question is quite amusing, as his future wife informed him of her reason for bagging out early on the treadmill:

A few minutes later, she came over to my bike. I thought something was wrong because she couldn’t have been running for more than four minutes. She told me she stopped running because the woman on the treadmill next to her “stunk.” And not a regular body odor gym smell. She described it as such: “It’s as if the woman took a crap in her pants, then rubbed it all over like lotion for good measure.”

Can gym management tell people they smell? [Philly Burbs]

Heads keep rolling at Philadelphia Media Holdings. This January, CEO Brian P. Tierney told union chiefs at the Inquirer and Daily News that the company needed to cut 10 percent of its costs. According to a just released Newspaper Guild memo, the publisher has followed up by laying off 68 employees, mostly from the ad department (though none from editorial). As might be expected, the Guild is less than pleased, accusing the company of creating a “climate of fear.”

Read the full memo after the jump:

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After a just-funny-enough opening segment by comedian Mario Joyner, a completely lackadaisical digital (as in vinyl-free) set by Philly’s own DJ Jazzy Jeff and some unnamed emcee, and then a 20-minute intermission, Chris Rock finally took the stage at the Academy of Music last night in front of a mostly white crowd to kick off his three-night stand, for which tickets remain.

He started off disappointingly by making fun of our cheesesteak obsession, but not in a remotely amusing way, and then seriously asking whether Will Smith’s childhood house had surpassed the Rocky steps as a tourist attraction. After these unfortunate attempts at acting like he knows anything at all about Philly, he launched into his act, which was way too long (people who paid $79.50 for their seats started leaving) but, overall, proved that he is one of the funniest fucks alive.

Some highlights:

Read the rest on Impresario, our new arts and events blog.

A majority of the Daily News’s grizzled, Rizzo-revering readership probably choked on their scrapple this morning after the paper’s front page featured a pair of shirtless young black men — twin gay-porn stars, no less — following the duo’s arrest yesterday on a string of burglary charges.

The “People Paper” thoroughly enjoyed itself, using the so-bad-it’s-good headline “Breaking & Entering” on the cover, and then even less subtly calling the pair “hardened” criminals inside. The story’s already an online blockbuster, as numerous gay websites are salivating over the boneability of Taleon and Keyontil Goffney (stage names: Teyon and Keyon) and their numerous stealthy violations.

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Suspect in snowball fight death wanted: An angry snowball recipient who gunned down a local teen has finally been identified. Police are on the lookout for 24-year-old Jose Mendez of North Water Street, who’s accused of killing the 15-year-old boy who accidentally pelted him with a snowball. [6 ABC]

Toll Brothers gets whacked: The economic downturn is hitting the low and the high — our very own massive Horsham-based home builder lost $96 million this quarter. [PhillyInc]

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