Here at yr Skyline, we don't get into a whole lot of celebrity culture and the like, but in this case, let's go ahead and make an exception. Josh Winheld, the rock star pictured above who happens to be celebrating his 30th birthday today, has been making all the rounds recently. With recent visits with the Inquirer's Dan Rubin, the New York Times, and this morning, Good Day Philadelphia, I'm just happy to be along for the ride.

Josh's autobiography, Worth the Ride (Little Treasure Books), debuted on Leap Day and chronicles his life with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Living with Tourette's Syndrome, I know what it's like to be frustrated by misconceptions and misrepresentations of . . . not necessarily an illness, but a way of life. (I wrote about this in November for City Paper.) But to mention Tourette's in the same breath as Muscular Dystrophy is simply improper. Tourette's is annoying, like a gnat that you can't swat away from your face. Muscular Dystrophy forces its chosen few to live life by its rules, which most often include wheelchairs and respirators. And not to say that Jerry Lewis' annual telethon is in any way a misrepresentation or even disingenuous, it's just that . . . well, in Josh's words, "if you ever watch the telethon, it is of a bunch of cute kids in wheelchairs. But we're not all kids anymore. Plus, there are so many other types of muscular dystrophy that only affect adults."

With any published book, the amount of work its author puts into it is nearly incalculable. But take into account the fact that Josh's dexterity depends on the accuracy of his headset's radar pointer, and not words-per-minute typing skills, and the 352 page book is that much more impressive. Dan Rubin's column did well to illustrate Josh's tech setup, but when I visited him last week, he gave me a test drive via a familiar web site.



Through the course of his demonstration, I picked up on a few of his journalistic techniques, and asked him about the AP Stylebook and Libel Manual on his shelf. He laughed and said "that's so old, it doesn't even address capitalization with web sites." I related that the only edition I ever owned was from 1994, a year before Netscape pioneered what we know as web browsing today.

Josh is a 2000 graduate of Temple University, having earned his degree summa cum laude in journalism. Me, I slogged through six years of Shippensburg University's journalism program and am still uncertain if I actually graduated that same year, 2000. That said, we agreed to disagree on two spellings: he says "website" is one word, I say it's two, "web site"; he likes "e-mail" with the hyphen, I say "email" goes without. Where we agreed, though, is that Hillary Clinton's criticism of Barack Obama's healthcare plan last week was that that word was neither one word "healthcare" (what he and I preferred) nor a two word "health care", but was instead hyphenated "health-care" . . .

Josh's family's home in Cheltenham, two blocks from the Philadelphia city line, has a back yard spread overlooking Tookany Creek. Neither of us could figure out why it's Tookany Creek through his neighborhood, then Tacony Creek after it enters the city, then finally Frankford Creek when it empties into the Delaware River. But the concept is pure Philly, we agreed.

And so is Josh Winheld. While we shared an excitement about the upcoming Phillies season -- "honestly, I don't think that Johan Santana is going to make that much of the difference for the Mets, the bunch of choke artists that they are," he bluntly offers -- as we each chowed a "house way" cheesesteak delivered from Larry's Steaks at Rising Sun and Levick in Lawndale, he had to lay his smack down when the topic of conversation drifted toward hockey. I admitted being a Pittsburgh Penguins fan old enough to remember exactly where I was when Mario Lemieux and a young, mulleted Jaromir Jagr hoisted the Stanley Cup against the North Stars and Blackhawks in '91 and '92. "Well," he says, "I'll give you this: at least you're not the Devils. The Penguins -- Sidney Crosby -- are just annoying, totally annoying . . . but the New Jersey Devils, now them I hate."

Knowing the Flyers were in their ten game skid, I politely changed the topic back to the Phillies and the predictable injury Brad Lidge has already suffered. No matter, he suggests, "I'm so glad that we finally have a decent team to watch." And again, I agree. As it is on this web site, baseball is also a frequently visited topic in Worth the Ride.

I bet he'd be happy to talk baseball at his book signing, happening this Sunday, 1-4pm, at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park. It's on Old York Road (Route 611) at Route 73. If you're not a baseball fan, why not just check out his blog, Winheld's World?

Happy Big 3-0, Josh.

–B Love