Weekend Wrap-Up: Philly, Philly

I needed a change in scenery and had some silly extended family stuff to deal with, so I spent this weekend in Philadelphia. I mean, when a city is known for its ‘Brotherly Love’ and is just a 90-minute drive from home, why shouldn’t I go, right?

On Thursday, I booked a suite downtown near City Hall and prepared to head out Friday afternoon.

Friday Afternoon/Night:

I checked into the Lowes Hotel Downtown Philadelphia. It was very nice. I'd go back again. I got a suite with an amazing view of City Hall and the Philly skyline. I wish I had taken a camera. That's how nice a view I had.

Friday night was cool. Steve, my boy from college, and I went to a Sixers game. I’m not really into the NBA, but decided to go anyway. The Sixers beat the Portland Trailblazers. That’s really all there is to report about that.

After the game, Steve and I went to Club Shampoo. It was decent. Honestly, to me, a club is a club is a club. The only thing that makes these places unique is the clientèle and guys in Philly are odd.

A couple of observations:

• #1 - Philly guys are either really on-point or really, really busted. This is true in most places, but in Philadelphia it was much more pronounced and there was really no middle ground. No one was marginal. They were either really hot or really, really not. More often than not, they were a mess though.

• #2 – The guys (and a frightening number of lesbians) “dance” oddly.
  
  First, let me say this: I’m no prude. I’m used to a little grinding at the club. I’m fine with that. What I’m not fine with and was completely taken aback by was the incessant jack hammering/pounding they do. This is tough to explain.
  
  They don’t slow grind. They pound each other into walls, speakers, electrical conduits, floors, the bar or whatever they may be using to brace themselves. It’s really the oddest thing and I haven’t seen anything like it since I was 16. At one point, I looked around and there were at least 9 couples/trios/quads just pounding away at each other on the dance floor. It was very, very, very odd.

• #3 – Fashion among young black guys in Philly is interesting. By interesting I mean a mess.
  

• #4 – The Philly beard (think rapper Freeway) is either a mess or really, really cute. I'm not sure how I feel about it.
  

I digress...

Steve, who is a 1L at Rutgers-Camden, got drunk as hell, so I had to drive his ass home. I completely feel his law school pain, so I didn’t even bitch at him about how drunk he got. He needed the time out. Before taking him home to New Jersey, we stopped at Geno’s on South Street to get a cheese steak. We ate, he went home, I went to the hotel, all was good. These drunk white guys entertained the hell out of us for 20 minutes while waiting for their steaks to be prepared. You know how white people are when they get drunk. They can’t just sit/stand there and be drunk, they have to act stupid. So, they beat up on each other for a while, then walked off eating their meals.

Saturday Afternoon/Night:

On Saturday, I joined most of my family for a ‘fake’ Thanksgiving. We had it a week early b/c everyone thought it was important to get together for the holiday, but no one wanted to actually alter their schedules to get together for the holiday. So, everyone flew in this weekend to have a fake Thanksgiving dinner. This week, most of us will have a real dinner with the family we actually talk to on a regular basis. Very odd.

I didn’t go out Saturday night, but met up with a friend who I hadn’t seen in awhile. We were only supposed to chill for a couple of hours, but I ended up unintentionally waking up there in the morning. Although we didn’t have sex, which in my mind was refreshing, it was still good to get together.

I woke up Sunday, drove my ass back to Maryland for a basketball game in College Park and then home for the evening.

All in all, it was a pretty good weekend.