Philly Chit Chat

Where’s the party is one of my favorite Madonna songs, and WHERE’s party was just what I did on Thursday, clever eh? You know how I feel about Laura Burkhardt, she is just the nicest, no nonesense, big hearted person you ever want to meet, and she invited me to Where’s office party, that’s beside the lovely event she invited me to a few weeks back that I didn’t even have time to write about. Anywho, It was an afternoon cocktail party, lots of booze, food and a dancing girl. Shockingly I brought my camera, ’cause I really want to be the Andy Warhol of Philadelphia, except without the bad wig, and there’s a good chance I won’t ever produce “Piss Art”. Anyway I fell down on the job, and instead of shooting, I spent a lot of time chatting, shooting and not collecting names; so forgive me, did Andy ever collect names, I think not, hopefully by this time next year, I will just know you. (Feel free to leave me a name and then I will get to know you, and then I can pass these suckers on to HX, QT, Philly Mag Social Scene, Social Philly and the likes… Thanks to Laura and Where Magazine, Triumph Brewing Co, & Profile PR for the invite!!OK these guys are the last people I want to see a week away from Nutrisystem morning noon and night, they are affiliated with Fusion Gym, which I never heard of, but love the name. This is what I read about it: Awarded Best Gym in Philadelphia Magazine’s Best of Philly 2007 fusion is a structured fitness studio for group and personal training that delivers the essential guidance, motivation, and support customers need to get and stay fit via a holistic approach that addresses HEART, MUSCLE and MIND www.fusioncrosstraining.com. Gavin McKay, owner, hmm, and Michelle Shannon From the CCD (I love that organization) Matt, Sheryl “Out There PR” Raskin (call me girl!), Meredith Trotter http://www.pulse-pr.com/, hmm I suck, and PR Maven Paige Wolf (Please put me on your mailing lists, I want to cover your events. Thanks)
This is the gayest shot on so many levels…Matt, Will, Me and James (I seem tiny in this shot, I like it) OK hmm all around and Zelinda with the red hair, no more walking home girl!! Then it was off to the Cashman bash, where I would see a lot of these people over there, which would explain the convenience of the party times. 2 -5:30PM, and then 6 – 9PM, but it was still kicking when I left at 9:30PM

The Cashman Party was held at Positano Coast (Thanks to JD for giving my lazy ass a ride)
If you are a long time reader of Philly Chit Chat or my other blog http://www.confessionsofapaparazzi.com/ well then you know who this is on the right – Sharon Pinkenson and you know why I love her so much. I still have not been able to really chat with her because she’s my Madonna of Philadelphia!! (I like the hat she’s styling, as my NYC paparazzi friend Margarita always says)
Cashman girls Dana Lombardo & Carrie Nork, and Brett (Publisher of Phlare Magazine) Festivities and a red sweater make the Yuletide bright

Lauren, Jeremiah of The Liquid Experience Massage (currently in NJ, but they travel and after you read about their massages, you will want to see them soon http://www.capemaymassage.com/ ) and JD Coleates of Triumph Brewery
Dana, Bob and TJ (who I enjoyed talking to; he told me the how he met Dana story, which is very unique and will be featured on my other blog http://www.howwemetstories.com/ shortly)Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow It sucks when I don’t get their names, especially since I believe at least two of them are single, update: Nick Corsano is in the center, and James Duggan (I thought the Faux Hawk was on its way out, but this guy was smoldering with his)
There she is, a radiant Laura Burkhardt (who surprisingly gets as embarrassed as a mention on my blog, as I get when people pay me compliments about being a fan of my blog) and Philly’s Tavern on Camac ‘s Dennis Fee
I tried to get them to juggle the apples, but Rich, James, the vivacious Susan, the new managing director of the Phila Film Society, Ed Urban and Steven Rosenfeld from the Printer’s Place, wouldn’t have any of that juggling nonsense. So maybe the apples represent something else. The forbidden fruit?

guests enjoying themselves
These two are definitely rockers and very stylish
The Cashman Associates celebrate another successful year of putting smiles the faces of their clients, friends, and guests
The DJ was awesome and the Cashman girls approve
THANKS TO Cashman for the invite I had an awesome time, met a lot of nice people, caught up with others, gave out all my business cards and even met some fans of Philly Chit Chat, which is always a little embarrassing, but I am grateful that you like my photos and put up with my diatribe.
The layout of the resturaunt was smooth, plus the decor and the private booths along this hallway were an oasis, ok I think they did that on purpose and it works. I still have two more parties, that’s right two more parties until Sunday. So I will be posting those events, and do a real time sappy Christmas blog entry and then tie up loose ends for the year, tell you about the f**king awesome year I had, thank the people that made it happen, and what I hope to do next year.

I am still irritated at myself for missing that photo of Booker and Alycia Lane last Friday, especially when I wasn’t too timid to snap the Governor smooching Judge Rendell as they parted ways at the Marian Anderson Awards last month. Glad to know that someone did get the shot The Shot last week at Kildare’s, so it wouldn’t have been the “money shot” I thought it would have been, but it still would have been good to have it in stock. Good news for me today, the final goal I set out to achieve in my p/t “Photography/Paparazzi” career was accomplished today. Completely unplanned, as I had given up on reaching and just occurred through someone seeing a photo on this blog. Can’t go into details now, but will cover it in the Year End wrap up next week.Thanks for stopping by today, and everyday, I really appreciate it. – HughE

I am fortunate to have a standing invitation to Berger Montague’s Holiday Party. (I worked on a project from 1/02 -6/04 and then from 8/05 – 12/06 I worked with Diane from Berger on a project in NYC). Diane and I went to the party together and we had a terrific time.

One of the things I enjoy most about going to this annual event is seeing a lot of my old friends and catching up. The room at the Westin was really beautiful this year.Last year’s room; I think the Westin got a better decorator cause that pink rug had to go and the room looks so much better nowHere are two of my favorites Brett and Helen Gym Flaherty. Brett is an outstanding attorney, a great dad and an amazing athlete, but Helen is the savior of children every where. I first met Helen back when she championed the effort to keep the stadiums out of Chinatown, an issue my life partner was also concerned with. Another cause Helen near to her heart is education. Recently on Frontline she was quoted as saying, “Education is not a business. At some point, quality of education and the concept of profit will conflict and that quality of public education will suffer.” Brett and Helen are the proud parents of three children, and I am going to find a house for them in Fairmount so they can be my neighbors and I can see them more often. New mom Gemma and her mom, Anna
New grandparents, The Markerts.
Style sisters Sandy and SoniaSome of my closest friends that I still keep in touch with weekly or monthly. Diane, Sharon, Jeff, beautiful Maryanne, Todd and Celeste (missing Susan, Marcy, Sonia and Barry)April and her friendKevin, the invincible Sheila and April getting their groove onOne of the best litigation attorney’s (and a mighty good dancer to boot) Sherrie Savett and husband, radio host and former senator, Bob Rovner She’s bringing sexy back Thanks to John, Mark and Berger for throwing another great shindig

My Office’s Holiday Party was held at the Flyers Game Saturday Night against the Carolina Hurricanes Hockey Club, it was great, well except the Flyers Lost.Santa was there and fans donated a lot of Toys for the Tots

Mike and our friend Jeff plead their case to Santa in hopes that he won’t give them coal again this year.Bob Kelly was there, it was great catching up. He used to go hunting with my dad.
Jimmy Burt and the Flyers Alumni – Bob Kelly, Gary Dornhoeffer and the great Bernie Parent!!
Santa’s Helpers

Shortly after taking this shot, security informed me that I could no longer take photos since I was using a telephoto lens, something about copywrite and ebay?

My boss Joe, Bernie Parent (I went to school with his son Chuck and also got to tell him that I picked up “The Secret”, after he recently mentioned in an article that it changed his life), Gary Dornhoffer and Mrs Burt. Hat Trick!! I had no idea that fans threw their hats on the rink when someone gets a Hat Trick. It was amazing to see.
Rebecca won a chance to ride the Zamboni between periods

He shoots, he scores!!
Then it was sudden death, and we lost by some fluke It seem to land on his shoulder, and the fans started cheering with our win, but when he stood up the puck fell into the goal. It didn’t matter, it was a fun night all around. It’s always nice to see your co-workers with their families and to catch up. OK but that parking lot craziness has got to go, I can see why public transportation is the way to go.

I had just left an event and was on my way home driving up Walnut, which has now become the The Strip, The Drive, The Drag or whatever South Street was in the 80’s & 90’s where people would just drive along and see and be seen (I made a left on 17th to Spruce and cut over to 22nd because I had to rush home and send my pictures out, which took me til 4AM anyway. Maybe they will be in People or Us Magazine for Christmas, more on that event Monday) Anyway I caught this guy carrying his girl, I guess that had a lot of Happy Hour. (unfortunately I also caught my rear view mirror and it flashed back)
I can tell by my numbers that I have a lot of people and regulars checking out the site today, I don’t usually post on the weekend, even though that is when I have the most time, just Monday thru Friday. Today’s an exception. Have a great weekend!!

Between December 12th and the 16th participating Midtown Village businesses are offering holiday deals, extended hours, and special in-shop holiday events.
With over 80 independent merchants, you are bound to find something special for the holidays.

Have you been east of Broad Street lately? Exciting changes have been happening in Midtown Village and the area has quickly become one of Philadelphias premier locales for daytime and nighttime activity.
Midtown Village Offers Coupon Shopping too, you don’t need to buy the paper or scissors to get these coupons – http://community.midtownvillage.org/mtvcoupon_phag.html
You know those great fruit bouqets pick them up here: http://community.midtownvillage.org/mtvcoupon_fruitflowers.html

Visit my favorite store: David White and James McManaman’s Absolute Abstract http://absoluteabstractart.com/ Stop by Spruce Street Video and say hi to Franni (we used to play softball together in ugh – 1992 for Spruce Street Video): http://community.midtownvillage.org/mtvcoupon_sprucevid.htmlI’ll be shopping all day Saturday picking, see you then…
http://midtownvillage.org/events.php?id=22

There’s a good chance Rittenhouse Square is going to look like this again today… Every Monday I go to Borders to see if any of the celebrity photos I took the week before, or even months before, placed in any of the glossies. This week I decided to go to FYE for a change, bad move, they still have magazines from the last week in November on their racks. What’s up with that?

Even though it was cloudy today, we had a decent sunset

I had never heard of the Running of the Santa’s before, but recently someone told me about this charity event that is held every year. Although I can’t make (Flyers Game) this year, Saturday 12/15, I don’t want you to miss this event so here is some information for you to use. Here’s some history from Wikipedia:

The 2007 Running of the Santas will be held on December 15th.
As of 2007 Philadelphia was joined by these other cities in sponsoring official Running of the Santas events: Boston MA, Chicago, IL, Denver, CO, Indianapolis, IN, Key West, FL, Louisville, KY, Minneapolis, MN, Nashville, TN, Pittsburgh, PA, San Diego, CA, Washington DC, & Ashburton, New Zealand.[2]http://www.runningofthesantas.com/It wasn’t enough that Philly founded the Running of the Santa’s, but I found something interesting while researching the running Santa’s, they are Santa’s from Philly who have a new twist on the event, the Running with the Speedo Santa’s. http://gophillyboys.com/ssr/about.htmNot only do I find it intriguing, but disturbing that they do their run in BOSTON!! This video really gets to the meat of the Speedo Running Santa’s from Philly

http://gophillyboys.com/ssr/ssr07.html

These shots, and the story fell through the cracks as it was the weekend before I went to NYC to cover Fashion Week (see http://www.confessionsofapaparazzi.com/ September).

This past summer Philadelphia raised Mark Webber shot a movie he directed, here in PhillyWood. It’s called “Explicit Ills” and is based loosely on kids he knew growing up and well you are just going to have to see it as it should be great. It stars mostly unknown Philly actors and a few heavy hitters that I was explicitly told by the producers not to use their names to promote the film as it is in their contract. On this particular day, the shoot was being done in a community center in Kensington, near A, B, C Streets. The nieghoborhood was a buzz with excitement, and the film crew was very respectable to the neighbors. For me I was so excited as it was my first “invited” on location movie shoot. (Usually I just crash the filming, or shoot from a distance)

In April, I met Mark Webber while I was covering the Phila Film Festival and Mark received the Rising Star Award. At a party Mary Patel and the Phila Film Festical threw in his honor I made his acquaintance (I am a big fan of his mother’s, Cheri Honkala , a social activist with the Kensington Welfare Rights group http://hughe2030.blogspot.com/2007/04/your-on-scene-paparazzi-mingling-at.html.) Here Mark directs Noah Simmons All I can tell you is he is in a karate outfit and the temperatures in this room are above 120F and he and all the castmates were real troopers.
To the left is one of the stars I am not allowed to mention his name, as he is doing the movie as a favor for Mark. A movie he stars in opens on Friday, and premiered tonight in NYC and this past weekend won the top prize in the LA Film Awards. He also shined in Little Miss Sunshine
Lots of little kids, and one of them may be the next Dakota Fanning or Jerry O’Connell; they were all very well behaved, even having waited for several hours for an earlier scene to be shot. They waited patiently upstairs with their parents, and were fed and played games. I spoke with the parents and they all said it was worth it as the kids really wanted to be in a movie. The actors are on the left, Mark is on the far right with the green hat, it’s pitch dark behind us
but during the take, I shoot this. The assistants at the table are playing chess, in the pitch black, but the flash lit up the scene. I guess they were used to working in the dark.
Mark gives Nicholas Simmens directions. He is to play his own tune, as this is a low budget, meaning good quality film, but not lots of cash to fund, movie. If he picked out a commercial tune there would need to be money paid to the writer of the tune, residuals. But everything worked out well as it was an awesome set, Nicholas was told to do a three minute song, but he played about 5 minutes of the most awesome tune with a spectacular guitar solo that would make Jimmy Hendrick’s proud. Finally it was a wrap, I thanked Mark, and although he invited me to shoot the finale in two weeks, where the girl from “Rent” would march along Market Street, I knew I wouldn’t go since I wasn’t allowed to photograph and market the shots of some of the stars (because it was in their contracts says the producer [not Mark, who was terrific to me and I appreciate it, and he had no idea the producers had told me this new info. Congratulations I hear you got “Explicit Ills” in Sundance – YIPPEE!! ], Instead that weekend I went to NYC and shot the NY Film Festival, and its a good thing as I got Halle Barry in People Magazine from a shot I took that weekend)I did read later in Dan Gross’ column: Rosario Dawson was among the cast of Mark Webber’s “Explicit Ills” celebrating at Rae inside the Cira Centre Sunday night at the wrap party for Webber’s directorial debut. * (But I already knew that)A friend of mine just got a photo with her last Thursday in NYC, I’ve shot her before, she is a SWEETHEART!! see the guy to the right, that’s the famed Radioman (again see the other blog and do a search on his name) but a Christmas tibit is he is the bum on the bench in the movie ELF, when Santa flies out of Central Park. He is crazy like a fox in person, but knows all the stars, and is invited to the Oscars every year, oh and has an XM radio show about celebrities.