Clout: When you want to punch a pol

TOUGH WEEK for City Councilman Mark Squilla, who managed to piss off every musician and live-music lover in the city - and a good chunk of America - with one little piece of proposed legislation.

On Wednesday, Billy Penn staff writer Dustin Slaughter wrote that Squilla's bill would require "owners of nightclubs, cabarets, bars and restaurants in the city to collect the names, addresses, and phone numbers of entertainers - bands, rappers and DJs - in a registry, and to share that personal information with police upon request."

Police would be granted veto power over whether shows could be held at venues that hold 50 or more people, based on a variety of factors.

Reaction to the story was . . . uh, not good. One Facebook user posted an image of Calvin - you know, the lovable kid from the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip - peeing on a photo of Squilla, with a caption that read: "Register This!"

(Note to kids: Long before the world had Internet memes, Calvin was a statement-maker on bumper stickers across the country. Usually he was shown peeing on the Dallas Cowboys logo. We digress.)

Another Facebook user called Squilla a "Nazi" - probably taking things a bit too far - while some creepster photoshopped a third eye onto Squilla's forehead with the caption, "Gimme your name, number, and address. I want to look into you." Another wrote that Squilla's face is "extremely punch able[sic]."

Yeah, well, that's just like, your opinion, man, as Jeff Lebowski would say. Clout personally doesn't recommend resorting to fisticuffs to settle beefs over proposed bills. We much prefer hashing out our differences over actual beef - like a nice cut of filet, with a couple of Old Fashioneds, at The Palm. (Seriously, how many times do we have to plug that restaurant to get comped a steak? Geez.)

Squilla it should be noted, argued that this was all one big misunderstanding, that the bill was aimed at addressing a loophole concerning live-streamed performances. He vowed to amend the bill.

And he seems like a nice guy, so we'll give him a mulligan on this one.

Everybody in Philadelphia was in full-blown "I can't even" mode over the weekend because of the Blizzard of 2016.

Experts estimate that 95 percent of people's complaints centered on how long it took for the city to plow their streets and their strapper neighbor down the block who didn't shovel the pavement in front of his house right away. (The remaining five percent of complaints still revolved around the Eagles' recent hiring of head coach Doug Pederson.)

Eagle-eyed Daily News assistant city editor David Lee Preston noticed that some South Philly residents took to Facebook on Sunday afternoon to complain that the sidewalk in front of State Sen. Larry Farnese's district office on Broad Street near Moore hadn't been shoveled, while nearby residents and business owners had already cleared the spots they were responsible for.

Farnese's spokesman, Mark Shade, said in an email that the senator "regrets that the entrance to his district office wasn't shoveled as quickly as his neighbors' sidewalks."

Farnese's landlord is in charge of clearing the sidewalk, Shade said, and took care of the issue by early Monday morning.

Lastly, we received an email last weekend from "Snowman," who claimed to be Director of Winter Operations for Montgomery County Commissioner Josh Shapiro's campaign for state attorney general.

"It's cold and snowy across Pennsylvania, but here's what's fun about that: You get to read an email from an actual snowman," he explained. "Hey! Don't question why a snowman is e-mailing you. It's 2016. We have iPhones, so of course we have email. And selfie sticks made out of carrots."

We carefully read the email, which sought volunteers to circulate nomination petitions to get Shapiro on the ballot. At that bottom, there was that ubiquitous "Donate" button soliciting campaign contributions of $5 to $1,000 for Shapiro.

But before we plunked down our hard-earned cash, we got to thinking: How in the heck can a snowman type on an iPhone? We can barely use ours with wet hands.

Then, it hit us: This email wasn't from an actual snowman, but a Shapiro staffer simply pretending to be a snowman to raise money and gather signatures for his boss. A clever ruse.

Nice try, Shapiro staffer. But we're onto you! Psssh. How dumb do you think we are?

-Staff writers David Gambacorta and William Bender contributed to this article.

gambacd@phillynews.com

215-854-5994

@dgambacorta