Gab

Frank Trombino stood watch over a sizzling grill full of hamburgers, hot dogs and sausages in the parking lot near Villanova Stadium, a spatula in one hand, a plastic cup of beer in the other. "Frank, can't you put that beer down for a minute?" said his wife, Lynn. "Nope," Frank shot back, deftly flipping a burger. Then as an aside, Trombino explained to a nearby visitor: "She forgets I've been doing this my whole life. I'm a cement finisher. I've got great wrists. " Before Saturday's thrilling Villanova football victory over Richmond at the Wildcats' stadium on Lancaster Avenue, the Trombinos and a few hundred kindred souls were indulging in a cherished American autumnal tradition - the tailgate party.

Cast out of heaven and banished to Wisconsin, fallen angels Loki and Bartleby have had a few thousand years to nurse their anger and doctor their way back in. In Kevin Smith's Dogma, the winged ones (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) are wise to a cosmic loophole that will (1) restore them to the friendly skies and - oops! - (2) destroy the universe. Dogma aspires to be irreverent - and often succeeds, in a shambling, mumbly Monty Python sort of way. But finally this loquacious comedy is irrelevant.

Three weeks ago, Karen Weisenberger and Bill Case were married in Oakland, Md., a small town not far from the groom's boyhood home. Fancy, it wasn't. He wore a gray suit, she a denim dress. In 10 minutes, maybe less, the ceremony was over - and the brand-new Mrs. Case hit the phone. She called - no, not her mother - but Pam and Gail back in Philadelphia, friends from her favorite party line. And why not? Karen and Bill had met last spring on 976-TALK in the city. There, for a fee, the lonely, the loquacious, the bedridden, the shy, the hot to trot could gab with as many as a dozen others of their ilk at once.

After winning an Olympic medal or Super Bowl, some celebrities head for Disney World. Ethan and Joel Coen collected an Oscar for their Fargo screenplay last March and promptly went bowling. Bowling is the ostensible subject, sport, and metaphor of The Big Lebowski, which opens Friday. Just call it the next colorful stop in the exotic cinematic country known as Coenland. A curious place, Coenland is a destination that rewards the adventurous traveler seeking physical and mental challenges.

Paris Jackson 's suicide attempt Wednesday didn't come out of the blue, an Unnamed Source tells People. The late Michael Jackson 's 15-year-old daughter has been suffering from depression for some time. She is now stabilized at an undisclosed Southern California hospital. "Paris has been very, very depressed for a while. She's been throwing fits and tantrums, kicking and screaming and cutting herself," says the Source. Photos recently published in the tabloids show a series of scars on Paris' arms, suggesting she has practiced the self-harm ritual of "cutting.

THE SAD NEWS hit hard for those around Chris Stigall. Their sympathy knew no bounds. "There were so many people who got next to me and said, " 'Good luck, good luck.' They would almost talk . . . like [I was] a terminal cancer patient," recalled Stigall, who mans the morning drive-time shift on WPHT-AM (1210). Stigall's perfectly healthy. But concerned fans in his native Kansas City, Mo., and here, too, acted "like I was on death's door" when, late last year, he announced he was leaving talk-radio stardom in his hometown to take over the 5:30-9 a.m. slot at 'PHT on the first Monday of 2011, when Michael Smerconish moved to afternoons.

A young Fort Washington company that markets and produces "900" phone services landed at the top of The Inquirer 100 list of the area's most profitable companies. Regal Communications Corp. took the top spot by virtue of an extraordinary return last year of 237 percent on average equity, the measure used to rank the area's publicly held companies for the profitability list. In part, the result reflects the fact that Regal's average equity in the period was unusually low because it had a negative net worth (its debts exceeded its assets)

Bell of Pennsylvania yesterday said that some dial-a-porn firms have decided to provide some very cheap thrills over Bell's phone lines by providing free access to sexually explicit taped messages that once cost about $2 a call. Although the phone company went to great lengths to prevent these entrepreneurs from making their messages available to children for a fee, there apparently is nothing it can do to prevent children from listening for free, Bell spokesman Tom Duddy said yesterday.

At least two dial-a-porn firms appear to be circumventing Bell of Pennsylvania's measures to prevent children from dialing their recorded sexual messages. In August, the phone company began assigning a new prefix to the dial-a- porn and gab lines. The new 556 prefix could be reached only by Bell of Pennsylvania customers who asked in writing for access to the lines. But it was possible yesterday to reach the lines offered by two of the companies - Sapphire Communications of Pennsylvania Inc., which is based in New York, and Audio Enterprises, whose address was not immediately available - using telephone exchanges that anyone could dial.

The Dublin-based Mexican emigre acoustic guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela represent no less than a phenomenon, a hard-driving 21st-century popular music act with transcultural roots. Expansive fusions without dilution. Really. During their 90 minutes onstage Thursday at the Electric Factory, however, the most salient points were engagingly immediate - and head-spinning fun. There was Gab Quintero's adorable smile, flashed as she rhythmically worked her guitar (sometimes pogoing), traded fret runs with Rodrigo, or acknowledged the crowd, adding the international rocker's salute of extended index-and-pinkie-finger at song's end. There was Rod S?nchez, walking over to Gabriela and admiring her right hand's speed-blurred fingers-and-knuckles strum/thump attack on string and wood, or picking out another fresh, fiery lead himself, sometimes teasing with hard-rock quotes.