Fake news! Joe Biden did not do the Bristol Stomp at Jerry Blavat’s Memories in Margate. | Clout
Philly disc jockey Jerry Blavat thought former Vice President Joe Biden was shaking hands and posing for pictures at Blavat's nightclub, Memories, in Margate last Saturday. He even broadcast it on his radio show. Alas, it was a look-alike.
It looked just like him.
Philly disc jockey Jerry Blavat may be getting up there — 79 in July — but the Geator with the Heater’s eyesight is just fine, and he could have sworn that from the stage Saturday, it looked like the white-haired guy in the suit posing for selfies and shaking hands at Memories nightclub in Margate was former Vice President Joe Biden.
“We’re packed, and people kept saying, ‘Joe Biden is here!’" Blavat told Clout. “I’m doing the radio show, and I swear it’s Joe Biden. It looks exactly like Joe Biden, so I’m saying, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Biden is here, somebody buy him a shot!'"
Blavat also posted “Joe Biden is in the house!” on Facebook, drawing more than 150 comments in a flame war between fans of the Democratic front-runner and supporters of President Donald Trump.
Alas, it was a look-alike, Blavat learned when he approached to shake what he thought was Biden’s hand.
“If I showed you a picture, you’d say it’s Joe Biden,” Blavat said. “People don’t come in wearing a suit and tie to Memories in Margate.”
Blavat regrets the mistake. But in this wacky campaign season, with Biden’s headquarters planned for Philly, just how crazy is it to think the former veep would pop in to do the Loco-motion?
Trump’s presidential counselor, Kellyanne Conway, has hit the dance floor at Memories. (Conway’s favorite song is ‘Carwash’ by Rose Royce, Blavat said.)
And Blavat said a much younger Biden attended the dance parties he hosted years ago at the Hotel DuPont in Wilmington.
Today, Biden’s campaign has been playing Bruce Springsteen’s “We Take Care of Our Own” as his walk-on music.
Biden has an open invitation to Memories, Blavat said, along with any other 2020 presidential candidate looking to get down, get down with voters of all ages. Biden’s campaign declined to comment.
“Listen, he might want to come in now," Blavat said. "We have all ages that come to Memories. If you’re there when we open up, the average age is maybe 55 to 95, and after 11 p.m. the average age is 22 to 65, and everybody’s there till 4 in the morning, so it’s a great range for people who want to find voters.”
Bob Brady, casino consultant
Clout told you last summer that Bob Brady, chairman of the Democratic City Committee, was not the retiring type, even as the final days of his last term in the U.S. House were running out.
Brady confirmed then that he was in the “very, very early ethically preliminary stages” of taking a job as a consultant for SugarHouse, the casino on a bank of the Delaware River in Fishtown.
It’s a done deal. SugarHouse in March added Brady to its list of “licensed entity representatives” with the state Gaming Control Board. Brady told us the job became official last month.
The former congressman is listed as the top guy at Robert A. Brady Consulting LLC, which lists a swanky address in an office building on Rittenhouse Square. That building, the Wellington, is also home to the law firm of Richard Sprague, a minority owner of SugarHouse and Brady’s attorney.
We asked Brady what the job entails. “Whatever they want,” he said, laughing.
Brady, who calls Sprague “a dear friend," now has an office at the firm.
“That’s my guy,” he said. “Mr. Sprague takes very good care of me.”
One more thing about that David Oh primary slam
Clout has a confession. We missed an interesting angle last week when we wrote about the Keystone Alliance for Public Charter Schools’ coming out with a last-minute political hit on City Councilman David Oh just before the May 21 primary.
Oh was ticked off, wondering why a nonprofit that promotes charter schools was targeting his bid for a third term. Andrew Carl, the nonprofit’s interim executive director, said it was because Oh had told The Inquirer he opposes charters.
Carl, we failed to note, is the stepson of John Perzel, the former state House speaker who spent nearly two years in prison after pleading guilty in 2011 to charges he used millions of taxpayer dollars to politically benefit himself and others. Perzel is now a lobbyist. Keystone Alliance is one of his clients.
Oh finished in the fifth and final spot in the Republican primary, advancing to the Nov. 5 general election, where the top two Republican vote-getters can secure two at-large seats set aside on Council for members who do not belong to the city’s majority political party.
Perzel declined to say whom he is rooting for in that race. Clearly, it’s not Oh.
Oh has drawn the ire of many local Republicans for his extended criticism of the Philadelphia Parking Authority, the last bastion of GOP patronage in the city.
Michael Meehan, chairman of the Republican City Committee, noted thatthe PPA is stocked with Perzel’s friends. And that Perzel’s son, John Perzel Jr., works for one of the candidates who potentially benefited from the knock on Oh, City Councilman Al Taubenberger.