shut up, Flav.

08Jun09

My Godtopus, what a weekend.

(I’m going to try to be at least somewhat coherent about this, but really? I’m just looking to get what I can remember about this awesomeness down so I have it to look upon and smile happily. So it’s probably going to be less general. Also, I’m not, like, omnipotent, so I wasn’t everywhere all weekend. If you were there, please leave me comments adding anything and everything you can think of that I missed!)

I rolled out of work at twelve thirty Friday. And don’t think I didn’t rub that in my boss’s face (and maybe a little bit in TK’s too), cuz she was headed to NH but I got the early day first! Ha! (I looked at my ticket the other day: I bought that sumbitch on March 25th. I’d been waiting for nearly three months for this.)

(It was awesome. I loved every last minute of it.)

So the drive to Philly was pleasant, despite the rain. Far more pleasant than the last time, though it was also raining back then. On the other hand, I got stuck at every single fucking light on Baltimore Ave. And then behind a trolley. And I really had to pee. But I made it to Julie’s sans accidents, and got my shit lugged up the steepest steps ever. Only took me three trips. Good lord those are some stairs. I changed and called Stace to see when she and Shep were heading to the Khyber, since she’s awesome and offered me a ride. Now, normally I’d think twice about calling someone who is essentially a complete stranger and asking them for a ride to a bar. But this is Bacon East, and it involves Pajibans. So really? I had faith.

Stace and Shep came and picked me up and took me back to their place before heading down to the Khyber to meet up with folks. Stace and Shep are awesome. They didn’t drug or kill me or anything. Yay!

This whole weekend was surreal, in the very bestest of ways. I’m not really good at meeting new people or making friends, but I met a bunch of new people this weekend who were already friends. It never felt weird at all, surprisingly, although there were times where I thought that maybe it should’ve felt weird. Does that make sense? Maybe it helped that I’ve already met Julie, as well as Genny, so I wasn’t coming out for this weekend cold, so to speak. I think it would’ve been different if I had met absolutely no one previously.

Met up with Julie at the Khyber. I got to see Jay (not the Pajiban) for a few minutes. He’s awesome. Seth and Dustin showed up fairly soon thereafter. We all drank and stood around and chatted, and then someone decided it was time for cheesesteak to happen.

So we all walked over to… South St? I think. To Jim’s for cheesesteaks. It was my first real cheesesteak ever. I can see that cheesesteaks are for Philadelphians what crab is to Marylanders–you don’t order it outside a very specific and limited area (the city for the cheesesteak, the state for the crab). Damn that was a good sandwich. I’m a convert.

After eating, we walked over to Sugar Mom’s (can I just add? I love cities because you can walk! Things are close to everything. I need to live in a city.), and met up with more people. Nicole found Dustin on South St (I think) when he was lost and brought him back. TK showed up soon after we got there; Blonde Savant was there as well. Tracer and Sabrina met us there. Shep left for a bit to go get Prisco, and then he was there too!

Prisco said there were 25 people at Sugar Mom’s, but I don’t think I met them all. Who am I missing? There were definitely a lot of us, though. I didn’t get to talk to everyone, and that makes me kinda sad. But I kinda floated around, which is what I do. I also did the sit back and just watch everyone thing a couple times, but I tried to join in as much as I could, even though I enjoy doing the observe and take pictures thing.

Things were pretty crazy at the bar; everybody was drunk. Except Dustin. Because he wasn’t drunk at all. Nope.

Uh… what happened? I took a picture of the ridiculous graffiti in the ladies room (“Rob Pattinson is life–the rest is just details”). I got carded after I’d gone in and out of the bar like four times; I had to go downstairs and get my ID to show the bouncer. We got yelled at on the patio at least three times because you’re not allowed to smoke, yanno, outside. Seth and Nikki yelled at me because their Go Go Gadget Spines ™ aren’t ready yet (these things take TIME and MONEY, people. I can’t do proper R&D without investments!). I took an assload of pictures. At one point when we were all outside, I said something about being an eloquent and Dustin and Prisco both looked at me and said “Yeah, you are.” “I am?” “You’re here, aren’t you?” Which I appreciate, because it always surprises me, such things. I don’t know why, but it does.

(In this case, I honestly think it’s because I’ve been reading Pajiba for so long, but I only started to comment less than a year ago. I still feel like a lurker, even though I’m as big an asshole commenter as a lot of folks. Julie and I were talking about it before we crashed Saturday night, and I am pretty sure I’ve been reading since shortly after Dustin started posting movie reviews. I remember there being some political stuff on there, even though it had made the switch to movie reviews. Anyway, I digress. Back to Bacon.)

We closed the bar. Actually, I’m lying about the drinking. We were all in the back having a really intense chess tournament and lost track of time–everyone wanted to be abed by ten at the latest. No one was drinking anything stronger than a shirley temple. And Stacey definitely did not break a wine glass. Nor did Seth knock Nicole’s beer off the ledge. Like I said: chess tournament. No debauchery involving Flat Kolby at all.

I don’t remember who, but someone decided it was time for cheesesteak again, so after the bar closed we piled back in Shep’s Awesomemobile and headed for Jim’s again. But they were already locked up, so we went over to Pat’s. Jules and I weren’t going to eat again however, so after joining the guys in line for about thirty seconds, Julie hailed us a cab and we split. We did not spend any time at all gushing to each other about how ridiculous was the amount of fun that had just been had by us. None, do you hear me?

Considering my state of totally not at all inebriated, I slept really well Friday night. (Usually in such cases I don’t sleep very well or late.) I was rudely awoken at about ten by a text message. And it wasn’t even from any of the ‘jibans, it was a friend from home laughing at how hungover I must’ve been.

Joke’s on him, I wasn’t! Ha! So we had breakfast and sloooooooooowly got ready for the day. The Finnegan’s Wake things quickly went the way of the dodo (uh, yaaaaay. and sorry to the folks who went there). No one seemed to be moving very fast. Seth, Dustin, TK, Genny and Jasmine all went off to see The Hangover (thanks for inviting us, assholes!). Nicole picked up me and Julie (how much do I love that I ended up not driving at all this weekend?) and we went over to Stace and Shep’s. The lot of us and Prisco went to the sketchiest little cafe/restaurant thing ever to get some lunch.

Seriously, we were worried we would all be sold into slavery.

The food wasn’t bad, per se. It just wasn’t great. The service was ridonk, though. It took forever for anything to happen. Not only that, but our drinks came out in stages. Stacey and Shep got water, so they got glasses of water. The rest of us got cups of ice, and about ten minutes later our sodas came out. Bizarre. Very bizarre. Stacey’s vegie wrap had chicken in it. Prisco ordered a cheesesteak and was informed a few minutes later that they didn’t have any steak. Somebody else ordered something and was told they had none of that available. The bacon on my BLT was really weird and super greasy. I noticed that Shep has a medic alert tattoo (diabetics represent!). That’s actually something I’ve been thinking about doing for a little while–so I’m totally not copying you when I do that, Shep. OK?

After food happened, we headed down to the Festival Pier for the show. Good times. God I hate crowds. This one wasn’t nearly as bad as I was afraid it was going to be, however. Not only that, but the fair weather and the blessed blessed breeze off the water helped immensely. I’m pretty sure I would’ve crapped out far earlier than I did if it hasn’t been for that breeze.

Well that, and the beer. Fucking seven dollars for a bottle of beer. Jesus, what’s up with that shit?

The show was a lot of fun. We staked ourselves out towards the back near the food (and, more importantly, the beer) and mostly just hung out. Folks went up towards the front to see bands as they liked; I didn’t. Public Enemy was awesome, especially with The Roots backing them. It’s very easy to forget that Flava Flav used to be more than the punchline on a VH1 reality show. (Or, if you’re like my brother, you might’ve never known that.) They put on an awesome show. Flav talked an awful lot and then made us all yell “Peace out” at him. I may or may not have been giving him the British version of a peace sign. I also really liked Santigold; I’m going to have to check them out.

Prisco walked up to me at one point and gave me a big ol’ hug and said “that’s from Agent Bedhead.” Hee! Nicole got the rape eyes from the creepiest dude there. Seth then spent the rest of the night plotting to get the best deal possible for her.

We started peeling off for Johnny Brenda’s around ten. The Roots were supposed to go on at that time– TV On the Radio was still playing. There’s that one song I liked, and it sounded like shit live. I think part of the problem was that the mixing was way off. But I’m not sure that was all of it.

It was really awesome to sit down. It’s been quite some time since I’ve spent that many hours on my feet two days in a row. Not that I’m complaining. I’m just saying, my feet fucking hurt by the end of the day, and it was really nice to go sit down and order a drink that didn’t cost seven dollars.

On the other hand, the bar didn’t have lager on tap, and the first beer I ordered was horrendous (sorry TK, really). I couldn’t even finish it.

I ordered a burger to eat, and it was divine. Part of that might have been due to the lateness of the hour and the exhaustion I was experiencing, but damn that was good food. The fries were hand cut and shoestring. Yummy!

Last night ended up being prety chill. We weren’t as loud. The drinking chess wasn’t nearly as intense. We did not lose track of time and end up closing the bar.

It was kinda bittersweet to part ways at the end of the night. But hugs were exchanged all around, and ways were parted. Julie and Nicole and myself, along with Genny and Jasmine and Prisco all piled into Shep’s van one last time. We dropped Nicole off at her car, and then Genny and jM off at their hotel, then finally myself and Julie at Julie’s house. You’ll forgive me for putting down the axe for a minute, but the weekend really drove home to me that all these stupid assholes really are friends, even though I hadn’t met most of them in person before. Conversation was good all over the place, which is something I thrive upon, good times were had, pictures were taken.

It was real cool, guys. I hope we can do it again.

(So what did I miss? What did I forget? I can’t imagine that there won’t be numerous “edited to add” epilogues to this.)

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Tags: awesome times, bacon east, pajiba, roots picnic, weekend