i keep a diary

April 19, 2003

Trip to Philly

Grant and Erica invited me to head down to Philadelpia with them for a Saturday. The plan was to bum around Philly for a few hours (you'd think it wouldn't be hard to kill a few hours in a city like Philadelphia, right?) meet up with our friend Chris (who has a car), and then on the way back to New York, we'd stop at a benefit BBQ held in remembrance of one of Erica's friend's dad.

I walked a few blocks from my place to meet up with Grant and Erica at the Golden Eagle $10 bus to Philly...
bus ˆ chinatown
...a.k.a. - the SARS Express!
bus ˆ chinatown
erica, grant
Grant and Erica were absolutely overcome by the...
bus ˆ erica ˆ grant
...gorgeous New Jersey landscape.
driving ˆ highway ˆ nj
me
Let's hear it for my home state, the Garden State!
bus ˆ thumbs up ˆ me
City hall in Philly.
philly ˆ skyline
grant
So we walk all the way from Chinatown over to South Street (which took like 45 minutes). We get there and it's mobbed and there's not much to do - so we decide that we'll get one of those famous Phily cheesesteaks...only to find the place and discover there's a 50-60 minute wait. (By the way, check out Grant with his little canvas tote-bag. I think he stole that from my 7th grade Social Studies teacher).
bag ˆ gay ˆ grant
grant, me
We ended up eating across that street at some god-awful, faux, Tex-Mex place where the bill was like $65 for the three of us to eat lunch. Lunch! Sixty-five bones! Bah!
sunglasses ˆ grant ˆ me
After our grodey lunch, we decided to go check out the "Mutter Museum of Medical Oddities" at University hospital...but by the time we got there it was goddamned closed.
museum ˆ philly ˆ thumbs down
erica, me
At this point we gave up on trying to find fun stuff to do in Philly and just sat in the garden outside of the museum. Ten minutes later we got kicked out of the garden because they were closing that too.
bench ˆ cranky ˆ erica ˆ me
grant
So then we walked around some more and we managed to find a sex shop...but it was closed too.
neon ˆ grant
Just when we thought nothing exciting would happend this guy strolls by wearing a black t-shirt with polyester overalls and I chased him for a few blocks until I managed to get close enough to snap this photo. (You think that ponytail's hot? Too bad you can't see that the front of his hair was cut short and spikey. Now that you know that, how much hotter is that ponytail?)
ponytail ˆ sneaky photos of strangers
chris a, erica
Just when we were about to kill ourselves - we got the call from Chris, he was around the corner in his car and was ready to get us the hell out of that God-forsaken town. Thumbs down for Philly.
thumbs down ˆ chris a ˆ erica
On the way home to NYC, we stopped at the Cherry Hill, NJ firehouse to eat at the "Bruce Long Beef and Beer Memorial Dinner" (Erica's good friend's dad died of cancer a few years ago and now they hold a fundraiser every year in his name).
crowd
erica, grant, me
Erica, Grant and me.
erica ˆ grant ˆ me
chris a, erica, grant
Chris, Erica and Grant.
chris a ˆ erica ˆ grant
grant
I got a new camera and the shutter timing is different than my old one - so when I went to snap a pic of Grant doing his now famous DLR Splitkick (David Lee Roth), the camera went off early and I instead captured him making this awesome face.

(PS - This is a true story: One time, Grant and I were down at the Jersey Shore and on the way back home, we stopped at a noody bar in Tom's River called Delilah's Den. We were sitting at the bar/stage chatting. One of the dancers came over and struck up a conversation with Grant. She asked where he lived, and after he told her "Chinatown, in Manhattan." She replied, "Oh, yeah. I guess I can kind of see that in your eyes." Seriously, true story.)
best ˆ chinatown ˆ dlr kick ˆ grant