Chick Goodroe is a former burglar and influential member of Philly’s infamous K&A Gang. Now, a man who has done his time and moved on to more a more legal lifestyle, Chick joins The Philly Blunt—with K&A Gang author Allen Hornblum—Chick joined us to talk about his entrance into the world of burglary, some of his best and worst heists, and running in a world of fast cash, fast cars, and Playboy Playmates.The K&A Gang, also known as Philly’s Irish Mob, was a legendary group of...

Gabby Ortiz stands five feet tall. She grew up near 2nd & Somerset in Philly. She was raised in a household of wrestling fans and now she is a champion professional wrestler.Gabby joins The Philly Blunt to talk about how her career began, life as a female in professional wrestling, and her future plans.A random conversation at Philly’s Terror Behind the Walls led Gabby to an audition at the legendary Monster Factory wrestling school. That began a professional wrestling journey which took...

Conrad Benner is the person and energy behind Streets Dept. Streets Dept is a “Best of” Philly podcast as well as widely popular street-art blog. The blog is celebrating its 10th year in existence in 2021. Born and raised in Fishtown, Conrad has always had an interest in the arts. We talked about the early days of Streets Dept and his decision to leave a stable job in marketing and pursue his blog full-time.Conrad is the expert in Philly street art. He discusses Philly’s current art scene,...

Allen Hornblum is an activist, writer, lecturer, and investigative journalist who has tackled some of Philadelphia’s more intense stories.As a worker in the Philly Prison systems, Allen noticed prisoners with bandages all over their skin. He inquired what was going on, which led him to uncover one of the more egregious experiments in Philadelphia history. Dermatologists at Penn conducted a variety of tests on unknowing prisoners at Holmesburg Prison. He later discovered the government was...

Judy Ni is of Taiwanese decent. She started out in the corporate world, but decided to follow food obsession and enter the restaurant world. Starting at the bottom, Judy worked her way to the top at fine dining establishments in the New York City and Philadelphia area. After some years in Philly at Farm & Fisherman, Judy and her husband decided to go back to her family roots and open a casual Taiwanese restaurant in Philly. They call it Baology, it’s at 18th and JFK and it’s receiving...

He’s written over 130 songs about the video game Mega Man, which earned him a Guinness World Record, rapped a Comic-Con, taught middle-school kids, and recently wrote a memoir. He is Mega Ran and he’s our guest on this episode of The Philly Blunt.Mega Ran grew up in West Oak Lane and graduated from Martin Luther King High School. As a kid, he was into video games as well as music. He decided to combine his two loves and started making songs about his favorite video game, Mega Man. Soon after,...

WALLIS, A 15-year-old from the Philly suburbs has released the perfect 2020 Christmas song called, Lonely Christmas. The song has gone viral with over 600K views in less than two weeks and on has garnered mentions on The Today Show’s website Ellen DeGeneres on social media and massive sharing. WALLIS joins us with her father on this episode of The Philly Blunt to discuss the song, the video, and handling her new found...

Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. is squid crazy, owns the Squidmobile, determined to bridge the gap between scientists and the general public through Skype-A-Scientist, and a resident of Fishtown. She’s also our guest on this episode of The Philly Blunt. McAnulty wasn’t your normal kid. She found joy in digging in the backyard and observing nature and animals. A National Geographic children’s video, which she rented from the library, featuring the color-changing cephalopod known as a cuttlefish changed...

Jeffrey McNeill, or as he’s better known Thee Phantom, is a Philly native who is the leader of the Illharmonic Orchestra, where he combines the world of hip-hop and classical music.McNeill started on his journey at the age of eight when he mashed up the Beastie Boys with Beethoven. McNeill has traveled the world introducing hip-hop fans to classical music and vice versa.He played with a 50 person orchestra in Seattle. He sold out the Kimmel Center and  played Carnegie Hall.McNeill joins the...

Season 5 Episode 4 of Queer Eye in Philadelphia featured Tyreek Wanamaker from Philadelphia. Queer Eye is a fun, inspiring show and the episode with Tyreek may be the most inspirational. Tyreek is our guest on this episode.Tyreek overcame a variety of obstacles in his life including having a brother doing life in prison and being homeless much of his high school years. These days, Tyreek is active in his community. He is co-founder of the non-profit organization The Block Gives Back, which...

Alex Tewfik is a restaurant veteran, who loves both restaurants and writing. He currently covers the Philly restaurant and drink scene for Philly Mag. He joins us to talk about his perspective and experiences in an industry that’s struggling to survive.Ambience was always a major factor into the success of most restaurants. We discuss how restaurants are adapting now that most ambience consists of outdoor seating on a picnic table. Convenience and quality takeout has almost surpassed...

Antonio “Tone” Johnson is a photographer who grew up in the West Philly and Overbrook sections of Philly. He’s got a new book out called “You Next: Reflections in Black Barbershops and he’s our guest on this episode of The Philly Blunt.Johnson’s most recent project, You Next, focuses on barber shops as sites for the cultivation of black male identity and wellness. He’s interested in capturing how those spaces and the communities within them are constructed and maintained.Tone shares his...

Trumpeter Arnetta Johnson has performed on the world’s stage, she’s only 26 with a bright future, and she’s our guest on this episode of The Philly Blunt.At 13, Arnetta Johnson decided to take up trumpet at Camden, New Jersey’s High School for the Creative & Performing Arts in an effort to get out of class. Four years later, she entered the prestigious Berklee College of Music on a scholarship. Soon after, she performed at the Super Bowl as a member of Beyonce’s backing band. These days,...

He’s a CPA, mergers & acquisitions attorney, author, and founder of the Philly Music Fest. He is Greg Seltzer and he’s our guest on this episode of The Philly Blunt.By day, Greg Seltzer is a major player in the world of mergers and acquisition law. By night, he’s an author of two books The 1965 Project: The Intersection of History and Music in 1965 and The 1968 Project: The Intersection of History and Music in 1968 and the man behind the annual Philly Music Fest.Philly Music Fest is...

Inga Saffron came to Philadelphia in 1985 to work as the Philadelphia Inquirer as a Suburban Reporter. She spent five years as the Inquirer’s Eastern European correspondent and eventually became their architecture critic in 1999. Since then, she’s been writing about Philadelphia’s changing skyline and neighborhoods. In 2014 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism for her work at the Inquirer.Inga sat with us just after the news broke of the 76ers submitting a development proposal for Penn’s...

BAMM ROSE, a retired stripper, is the founder and CEO of Stilettos, Inc, a non-profit that works for improved and safer working conditions for strippers and sex workers in the Philly area. She has also organizes the Philly Stripper Strike to bring awareness to the racism and colorism in gentlemen’s clubs and to the harassment that sex workers endure on a daily basis.Rose also organizes “dog walks,” which are protests were women dog-walk consenting white people to signify an end to white...

Dr. Steven Klasko is the CEO of Jefferson Health, named the #2 Most Influential Person in Healthcare, and probably the most honest healthcare executive in the country. In this interview he spills the dirt on the issues of government, healthcare providers, insurance companies, and pharmaceuticals and how to make the country better and healthier for all citizens.Dr. Klasko, born in South Philly, started his career out as Little Stevie Kent, a radio disc jockey on WYSP in Philadelphia. After...

Philly’s favorite trash man, Terrill Haigler, joins us to talk Philly trash.In a city that prides itself on being blue collar, it should come as no surprise that its latest viral sensation is a sanitation worker.Terrill Haigler saw that a storm was brewing Philly, people angry at the trash department without understanding why trash was running so late. So he decided to start an instagram page where he’d explain exactly why they were running late. In about 6 weeks, he’s gotten over 9000...

A. Charles “Chuck” Peruto, Jr. may be the biggest name in Philly criminal defense work. He wasted no time in making a name for himself in his 20s, taking the case of the Whitman Park Sniper. A few years later, he represented Joey Coyle, an unemployed longshoreman who stumbled across a bag filled with $1.2 million that had fallen out of a Brinks Truck. He also represented murderer Gary Heidnik and defended Joey Merlino. After Meek Mill passed over Peruto to take on another lawyer, Chuck took...

We sit down with Damon C. Williams. Damon is an award-winning journalist having written for the Daily News for a decade and then at Philadelphia Tribune. A bulk of his work focused on local politics. Damon has also released a memoir available on Amazon called Soul in Ink, the memoirs of a journalist. Maybe more importantly, while at the Daily News, Damon started a rap and hip-hop column in the 1990’s that focused on local artists in Philly. It was one of the first, if not first, columns in a...

Philadelphia LGBTQ media star and poker shark Butch Cordora joins The Philly Blunt for a Live Bluntcast via Facebook Live. Butch created and starred in the cable interview show In Bed with Butch. He produced a line of annual calendars posing naked alongside straight naked guys called Straight & Butch, and he recently released a poker book called “The Gay Guyde To Poker: Use Your Minority as a Weapon.”Butch came to Philly in 1987 from the Wilkes-Barre area to live as an openly gay man. He...

Former Sr. Editor at Philly Mag and currently a race reporter for Vox (dot) com, Fabiola Cineas, joined us for Bluntcast #19.Fabiola wrote a great piece about the history of Juneteenth of Vox, which they published on Juneteenth (June 19th).She discussed the history of the day and its celebrations, what the learned doing the research for the piece, and if she could have written that same article for Philly Mag.We also touched on the lack of diversity at Philly Mag, both on the Board and in its...

Feminista Jones is one of the most unapologetically brilliant people in Philadelphia and we guarantee that you will leave this interview with a different perspective on the world than you went into it with. Hear her message to people who have just joined the movement, her thoughts on black gun ownership, and what her thoughts are on Dave Chappelle, Shaun King, and Candace Owens. And be sure to pick up her new book, Reclaiming Our Space…as soon as it’s back in stock. It’s currently sold out on...

Nikki Allen Poe is a local activist and sandwich shop owner. He recently made headlines when he refused to send sandwiches during the Philly protests and later declared that he would not service police officers in uniform.Poe is also Philly’s leading cannabis activist and played a pivotal role in Philly’s decriminalization of cannabis. We discuss the reaction to Poe’s business decision, his thoughts on the current protests in town, and how he is helping the cause.We also talked about his...