Please join me tomorrow for the debut of my spectacular new blog, IMPRESARIO — your daily dose of arts, entertainment, and mindless fun.

There will be a bit of everything, from opera to karaoke, ballet to bowling, Rambo to Renoir, and, of course, Friday’s Weekender, my take on how you should spend your free time. See you there! — Victor Fiorillo

All I can say is brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I hate this freakin’ weather. Should you desire to brave the wretched elements, I offer some fine filler for your agenda.

The same thing happened to me on 13th and Locust … If you still haven’t seen Philadelphia Theatre Company’s (fairly) spectacular new home, the Suzanne Roberts Theater, a good excuse would be the opening of M. Butterfly, a Tony Award-winning play about some French dude who’s all hot for a pretty little Chinese opera singer who turns out to have one Y chromosome too many. And closing this weekend is New City Stage Company’s powerful Extremities at Mum Puppettheatre. All about victimization and revenge. Get a sitter.

Not so pretty pictures … They can build all the condos they want — Philadelphia will always have a gritty, shadowy underbelly, which I, personally, love and which is perfectly captured by local photographer Natalie Hope McDonald in Evidence, a three-(Philly)-woman show at William Way. (An example: the lovely Anya). Plus there are both disgusting and beautiful vein-popping bodybuilding photos by Ellen Rosenberg.

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On Sunday night at the Borgata, legendary mascaraed diva Diana Ross kept the capacity crowd of 2,400 on their feet as she wriggled and writhed her way through the best of her catalog — from her days with the Supremes to her channeling of Billie Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues to her stab at being a disco queen — and through a series of garish, glitzy, high-slitted gowns (in which the impressively bottomed 63-year-old still looks damn fine).

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Were I a shameless self-promoter, I would go on and on about The Sea, a very cool play that I happen to be in and that happens to start this weekend. But since I’m not, I will just give you these perfectly respectable though undoubtedly inferior recommendations.

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The best thing about Christmas being over in less than a week is not that the relatives head back from whence they came or that your checking account will finally reveal a sliver of its former self. No, it’s the fact that dance companies the world over — including our own Pennsylvania Ballet — will close the curtain on their productions of the Nutcracker. Now, they say that this tired old tradition keeps the lights on for many troupes, but there are a lot of other folks out there who’d like you to buy a ticket to their Christmas shows, too. (Plus, I’m pretty sure that the Ballet has some friends with deep pockets, like, say, Wachovia, Chrysler, and Reliance Insurance.)

Should you choose to step outside of the comfy confines of the Academy of Music and venture out into a Yuletide world less traveled, I have a few suggestions …

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In our eternal quest to become more cool, we sent senior editor Sandy Hingston’s 18-year-old daughter Marcy and Marcy’s friend Patrice to the Chris Brown concert at the Wachovia Center last night (Chris Brown being a heartthrob singer, also 18, who stars in the new movie This Christmas). Then we had Sandy ask the girls the sorts of questions Philly Mag readers want to know about … well, a Chris Brown concert.

Sandy: Is there a metal detector?
Marcy: No. They said they had the right to search our bags, but they didn’t search ours, and I didn’t see them searching anyone else’s, either.

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Missed Pig Iron Theatre Company’s sold-out run of Chekhov Lizardbrain at the Latvian Society? Don’t tell anyone, but they’re doing an open showing of selections from a new version of the show Friday night at 7 p.m. And it’s free. And weird. And really, really good. Wanna go? E-mail johnf@pigiron.org immediately. — Victor Fiorillo

Me? I just can’t take this cold weather anymore, so I’m off to Turks and Caicos for some pristine bods and beaches. You? You’re stuck with Kensington, the Chinese, and Macaulay. Enjoy.

Give Netflix a break … We’re in a brief lull in the movie business. Some of the best movies of the year — American Gangster, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead and No Country for Old Men — have been out for a while, and the movie that I fully expect to clean up at the Oscars — Sweeney Todd — isn’t out for a couple of weeks. But that doesn’t mean you have to sit at home and watch Die Hard or Beaches for the 30th time. My suggestion: Go see two old (well, old to me) and brilliant (though in very different ways) movies — Blade Runner at the Ritz East and Home Alone at the spectacular new Ambler Theater. Yes, Macaulay Culkin was a horrible little prick, but he sure grew up fine.

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Ah, the promised wintry mix. The gaudy department store decor. The month of Law & Order reruns and stop-motion reindeer on TV. It all can only mean one thing: The dreaded holiday season is upon us. Enjoy yourself while you still can.

I’m guessing only one of them can get it up … This weekend, three very different shows featuring singers of the male gender hit town. My personal pick: the swaggering Tom Jones. Oh, excuse me, Sir Tom Jones, as his office in the UK pointed out to me. Sir Tom (at the A.C. Hilton all weekend) may be best known for his hit singles “It’s Not Unusual” and “What’s New Pussycat,” but they are child’s play compared to his balls-to-the-wall Thunderball. If Sir Tom exudes too much testosterone for you, there’s always the thoroughly asexual (and thoroughly magnificent) Vienna Boys Choir at the Kimmel and Bobby Rydell at the Keswick. Sure, Rydell hasn’t had a hit since more than a decade before I was born, but the high school in Grease was named after him, so he must have been pretty cool at some point.

Just what you need, more food … We may have lost Lollapalooza, but we will always have Latkepalooza. This year (the fifth annual), chefs from places like Bar Ferdinand and Marigold Kitchen will spruce up 3,000 or so of the lowly potato pancake. In case you lost track, Hanukkah starts next week.

What the hell is an Electric Boogaloo anyway? … I wrote off breakdancing a long time ago as one of those things that I think I would really like to do but will never actually do, and I’m fine with that (though I do remember doing a mad Worm at a drunken party in the ’90s). I would much rather watch the experts at work in the Kings of the Floor competition at Society Hill Dance Academy.

Yeah, but I get to bang Fran Drescher … I’m pretty sure that on my wife’s list of men that she could guiltlessly make out with if she just happened to be hanging around Phuket at the same time as him is Anthony Bourdain of No Reservations, the Travel Channel show where he scoffs down goat colon soup and mealworm pie. (Fran Drescher has never had a cockroach in her mouth, so I think I have the better deal.) He’s totally arrogant, which is actually what makes his show so good. See him be arrogant at the Free Library on Saturday in support of his new book.

And because I can’t decide … Bowling Against Bullets at Lucky Strike … (one of my favorite movies) Donnie Darko and cheap beer at the Troc … and 1812 Productions’ politically charged (and no doubt very funny) This Is The Week That Was at the Adrienne.

If you’re reading this, you are not one of the 160,000 people (statistically anyway) who died yesterday. And if you play your cards right, you might just hold on through the weekend. Get out there and do something while you still can.

What does “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” mean, anyway? … For those uncultured among you, Patti LuPone is not just Corky’s mom on Life Goes On. She is, in fact, a Tony-Award-winning actress with lots of brass in both attitude and voice, and I hear that her musical revue at the Prince with Mandy Patinkin (think lots of Sondheim and undoubtedly a little Evita, which the two starred in back in the ’80s, and, hopefully, a little Sweeney Todd, in which Lupone was absolutely spectacular last year) is fabulous in that “your mom will love it” sorta way. The folks at the Prince tell us that good seats are still available for Saturday’s matinee.

Unwrap all candy BEFORE the show starts … This weather is movie theater weather, so stash some drinks and bagged popcorn in your bulkiest winter coat and catch a flick. If you know where Ambler is, you might consider checking out the newly renovated Ambler Theater, which the Philadelphia Weekly gushes over this week. Think art house, not multiplex. What would be much more fun, though, is a trip to the International House for the 24-hour Horror-thon, presented by Exhumed Films — local curators of the wickedest and cheesiest horror films known to man. At $20 for this entire day of gore, that’s less than a cent per liter of blood spilled.

Boooooooooo-tsie … Philly’s Bootsie Barnes may be old and cranky, but he can still blow one mean-ass tenor sax. Hear him do so tonight (Friday) with his organ quartet at Chris’ Jazz Cafe, a 2007 Best of Philly winner.

But is it a fruit or a vegetable? … If you haven’t done so already, right now is probably a good time to think about your Halloween pumpkin. First, you need a pumpkin, and while going to the Ack-a-me might be the easiest solution, picking your own is a bit more rewarding. (Plus there are usually corn mazes around, so you might finally lose your kids once and for all.) Once you’ve acquired said pumpkin, avoid the modern trappings, like those Pimp My Pumpkin kits, and get into a little old-school carving the Martha Stewart way. Finally, whatever you do, don’t try making pumpkin pie with your pumpkin flesh. In this one very specific instance, canned is always the way to go. Or better yet, leave the pie-making to local charity Manna.

What if I gave him fangs??? … Everyone knows the story of Dracula, but the should-be-better-known Rosenbach Museum near Rittenhouse Square presents the story of the story of Dracula using the original research and notes of Bram Stoker, the novel’s author. If you go on Saturday and notice a bunch of ghoulish characters from the book roaming around the Square, it’s just the Rosenbach’s annual Dracula parade.

As always, e-mail me with your Weekender ideas and dinner invitations.