Ok, so it may not always be sunny in Philadelphia, and it wouldn't matter anyway because I am a bit dissatisfied with Philly right now. In fact, I have never had a worse day in Philly. So, here goes:
Saturday May 17th started out as a normal day for good ol' Bourbon. I drove to the Jenkintown SEPTA train station bright and early and caught the 8:18 into center city Philadelphia to attend Human Resources Management Strategies at Temple University. Now, this is an ALL-DAY class which is pretty brutal for a guy who hasn't worked a full day since he was in Cuba, and even then I wouldn't call watching "The Shield" working... Our professor is great and he kept all of us entertained. I earned a green smiley face sticker for contributing to the discussions about Human Resource Management. I am awesome.
I went to lunch at Reading Terminal Market with two of my classmates. Here is where the day took a drastic turn. My sandwich was ok, but my fries were NOT VERY GOOD! What the hell? It was the Amish cafe. I assumed they would be good. My day only got worse from here.
After a disappointing lunch, I was temporarily boosted by earning another sticker from Professor McClendon. "Is this great stuff or what?" When class let out, I headed to the Market East SEPTA station to meet Rob for the impending doom, or Tiger Army / The Unseen / War Tapes concert.
We headed to South Street to grab a slice of South Street's finest pizza at Lorenzo & Son. I have eaten there twice before and I love the place. They only offer slices of plain cheese pizza. Nothing else. If you don't like it, leave. After gorging ourselves on pizza, we headed to the punk rock show.
Feeling a little out of place with my Temple MBA bag, I tried to check it at the box office but they wouldn't let me. So, we grabbed balcony seats so I wouldn't have to carry it around. The first opener was War Tapes: http://www.myspace.com/wartapes. They were pretty damn good and I intended to pick up their CD. Next up was The Unseen. I have one of their CDs and they kick ass. Really punk. http://www.myspace.com/theunseen. Tiger Army was outstanding of course despite the sound levels for the stand up bass being way too loud.
No problems throughout the entire show until the final Tiger Army encore. I looked down for my bag and it was gone. It was right up against my leg the entire show and I had seen it just a minute before. I immediately raced for the door asking the security guys if they saw somebody carrying a bag. They were clueless of course but didn't see anything. So, I searched the upstairs area and had no luck. I waited by the entrance and watched everybody leave the venue to see if they had it. Nobody did. I figured it wasn't too bad. They only got one book and the bag. Being Bourbon I got the bag for free from Temple and the book was a softcover book made specifically for my HRM class that couldn't be sold for anything. So, I figured no problem. I had my wallet in my left pocket and my car key and cell phone were in my right..........FUCK!!!!
MY CELL PHONE AND CAR KEYS WERE IN THE BAG!!!!
So, Rob and I tried calling my phone and by some stroke of luck some drunk guy answered it. He found it on the floor of the bathroom at the Trocadero. I immediately went back in to search the bathroom for my stuff. No luck. Rob got a location of where they were with my phone. "Lehigh and Aramingo in Fishtown." Are you fuckin kidding me? Halfway across the city 20 minutes after my bag was stolen? So, I told them to give it the the bartender at the establishment they were at and I would be by in an hour and a half to get it.
Rob and I then started to brainstorm how to get home from the Jenkintown station without car keys. We called my dad who was thrilled to get a call at 11pm. He grabbed my spare set and headed for Jenkintown. Rob and I jumped on a train and met him there. He gave Rob a ride home while I set out on my quest across Philly to retrieve my cell phone. Here's where the fun begins.
Fishtown is on the edge of North Philadelphia and Kensington which are notoriously bad neighborhoods that average 2 murders a night. Lehigh Ave bisects this urban utopia and I have no idea where Aramingo is. Knowing that Lehigh is a stop on the Broad Street subway line running through the finest sections of Baghdad......I mean Philadelphia, I headed down Broad to find Lehigh. For anybody looking for this street, it is easy to find. Remember where the shooting was at the edge of the Temple University campus on Thursday in broad daylight? Yep, hang a left there near Bojangles the pimp and what looked like 2 drug dealers, and head east.
The first thing you will notice on this scenic drive through the cradle of liberty is the lack of street lighting and parked cars. Now, remember this is around 12:30 on a Saturday night. Prime time to drive through an area affectionately known to THE POLICE as "The Badlands." The first thing I noticed were the guys standing on the street corners like they were slinging rock or something. Oh wait, they were. I only saw one deal go down as I whizzed by at 40mph. I also noticed a lack of other vehicles, namely police cars. The few vehicles that were parked on this shitty street were Escalades and Expeditions with spinners and chrome. I figured that a nice car like that would get stripped in a neighborhood like this. Oh wait, those belong to the big drug dealers and touching them means certain death in the City of Brotherly Love.
As I approached a green light, I saw a lady dressed in rags, high as a kite on crack, wandering in the intersection. She screamed something at me as I drove past, but I really don't care. The only reason I didn't hit her was fear of denting my hood. It's not like there were actually any cops around to give a shit about me running down a crackhead out of her mind in the middle of Lehigh Ave in Kensington.
Some guy in a fancy Escalade pulled up next to me and rolled down his window. He said something, but I ignored him and got the hell out of there. I may look like I was there to buy some PCP, but I wasn't. I know that "Thou shall not ride the clutch," but I figured that sitting at a red light out of gear in this neighborhood could be the difference between a flesh wound and a kill shot. My car never idled along Lehigh.... I actually made a mental note to myself as I passed the hospital, that this is where I may have to drive myself with a slug in my body if things get ugly. I figured that I could make it to the ER entrance before I lost enough blood to pass out.
I finally made it to Aramingo Ave as the scenery changed into an area with a bunch of college bars and buildings that were not abandoned or riddled with bullet holes. I found the correct establishment and got my phone back. I don't know how I did it, but I did. I even met the friend of the drunk guy who took the phone away from him and gave me directions. He apologized for his friend who found it on the floor of the bathroom and took it. I quizzed them about my bag highlighting the fact that nothing in it was worth shit other than the phone. They hadn't seen the rest of my stuff. I am shocked that I actually got my phone back. I don't know how that happened.
I figured that my adventures for the night were over as I asked for different directions to the nearest freeway. As I was driving along the Schukyll Expressway out of the city, I noticed some asshole swerving all over the road. I kept my distance and hoped that he would hit that really big tanker truck that he barely missed, pancaking his car, killing him and injuring no others. That didn't happen. Good I guess, since it would surely create a traffic jam that I would have ended up in.
Anyway, as I approached the Gladwyne exit, I saw some police lights at the bottom of the offramp and thought nothing of it. Seconds later I was faced with a police car coming straight at me!!! I was doing about 65mph on a FREEWAY. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THIS COP DOING?!?!?!?! He stopped, blocked the road and turned the correct way in to traffic. I slammed my breaks on. If I hadn't, I would have surely hit him. The asshole then just turned off his sirens and went the correct way on the freeway. I then had to accelerate as fast as I could to avoid getting hit by cars behind me. He didn't even pull over the drunk guy. Go figure.
After that, I made it home around 2:45am. What a bad day. Stolen bag, North Philly crackheads, drug dealers, cops trying to cause traffic accidents.
Here is some background info about the fine neighborhood I had to drive through from the Philadelphia Inquirer:
"A short ride from Philadelphia's Center City, Kensington has come to be synonymous with extreme poverty, drugs, the sex trade, and violence in the minds of many in the city.
Local textile jobs have long since gone to cheaper labor in the South and abroad. Boarded-up houses line the streets, lots stand vacant, and shops string razor wire along their rooftops to ward off burglars. Most of the businesses - liquor stores, pawnshops, check-cashing offices, and inexpensive Latin American or Chinese eateries - cater exclusively to the very poor.
But there's another local economy in Kensington, though it's an illegal one. The drug trade, says community activist Arun Prabhakaran, is second only to public assistance as the major source of income in the neighborhood."
Oh yeah, I think it may have been karma that got me. Earlier this week at my part time job at Blockbuster, I chased down a shoplifter and got her arrested. I wasn't going to chase her, but I figured, we have been ripped off a lot and the weather is nice enough for a jog outside. She had a head start, but I felt like ruining her day. I cornered her near some dumpsters at the apartment complex and got her to give me the DVDs. As I stalled her by BS'ing her about the fact that I wouldn't call the cops. The cops finally showed up and grabbed her. She whined "You said you weren't going to call the cops." I said "I lied. Tough shit." I felt good inside because anybody with a brain who doesn't want to pay for DVDs rents them, copies them, and returns them. So for lack of creativity I decided to make sure she got arrested. Plus, I am a good person and retail theft is no way to try and skim a buck. I have thought of many more clever schemes that were much better orchestrated that taking DVDs from a store. How low-brow..... Anyway, since I stopped a thief I figured that me having my bag stolen was karma coming back to bite me in the ass.
Here is the news story:
"Emily Raterman, 25, of Plumstead, was arrested for retail theft at 4 p.m. Tuesday at Blockbuster Video, 73 Old Dublin Pike. Police said Raterman attempted to take four DVDs, worth $94, from the store without paying for them."
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/113-05152008-1534342.html. Scroll about halfway down.....
Wow, $94 for 4 DVDs. What a rip-off. Man are we overpriced!
So, Philthy sucks because I was robbed of my school bag, and there are crackheads and urban decay everywhere and the cops try to cause accidents instead of arresting the above bag thiefs and drug dealers.
One last thing. My buddy Antawn Harvey made a film for his college about homeless people. Check it out: