Please join the ESPN tournament challenge group. The Poop, as always. Vote early and often. Do one for the kiddies, one for the wife, one for the family dog.
I hate the Phillies, I hate the Eagles, so why do we keep going to Philadelphia for these things?
Our waitress at the Fieldhouse had huge boobies. I wanted everyone to talk quietly so she had to lean in closer to hear.
Why were so many people fucking with Kevin? I've never noticed it before. But I think it happened at least four times this weekend.
My aim is still as good as ever.
Even though it was Dan's bachelor party, he wanted us to have a good time. I wanted Dan to have a good time, and the only way to do that was for me to have a good time. So I had a good time. And I think Dan had a good time.
You know you're eating too much when 15 people at the table ask you if you've seen "The Great Outdoors," then they start talking about the scene when John Candy eats the Ol' 96er.
Syracuse basketball is pretty embarrassing right now. They're sloppy on offense and horrible on defense. There was one fast break when no one even turned around.
Seeing Jack was the best part of the game. Though SCZA was a little furious that Jack stuck his hand in his beer, spilling about two dollars worth.
The lemon ices were the second best part of the game.
Josh has a strange obsession with Kevin's face. First he wanted to fuck it (and start www.fuckkevinsface.com) then he wanted to punch it. Kevin's dad was not amused.
Somehow I ended up sitting next to SCZA at the game and at dinner. And we had a great time. Two Jewish superpowers who once held a years-long feud now get along swimmingly.
Trey is a misbehaving dog. But how can you get mad at a face like that?
I really wished Josh and Erin had given their dog a different name. I was so confused. At one point I thought Kevin the person had a slipped disc and Kevin the dog was taking his picture with two lesbians.
It should surprise no one that Billy and I dressed for the game almost exactly the same. What should surprise you though is that Alison seems to enjoy pointing out these similarities.
There was a cute girl sitting in front of me at the game, she was probably an SU freshman or maybe sophomore. She kept turning around to talk to me, and at one point she said "I'd love to be in the locker room at halftime." I gave her a puzzled look and she added "to yell at them." I said "oh, I thought you meant something else." Billy found this very funny, but I don't know why. It was a simple misunderstanding.
SEPTA really needs to enter the 21st century and do away with tokens.
McFadden's was like Faegan's South for one afternoon.
When your fraternity disbanded 12 years ago it's time to stop calling people "brother" and asking their numbers.
I love surprise guests. Especially when the surprise guest is Donald Mark Brierley, armed with an evil-looking goatee and some great life-after-divorce stories.
Spanish people call salad tossing, "el beso negro."
But the number one thing I thought this weekend: I'm getting too old for this shit.
The launch of EliteXC (at least on CBS) was a successful one (at least from my in arena perspective). Here's my recap of events (in chronological order, roughly) of the fights.
Since I don't know all that much about the techniques involved in MMA I'll leave that stuff out or just repeat what the fight doctor, TON told me.
We got there pretty early because we wanted to see the undercard/dark matches.
The crowd was pretty good, as you would expect it was mostly young men, in Tapout t-shirts, but it was pretty ethnically diverse and there were more women than I expected, and quite a few good looking ones.
We were really impressed with a 140 pounder named Wilson Reis. He's a jiu-jitsu guy who also appeared to have a pretty decent standup. He tried several submission holds before finally winning with a rear naked choke. He may be too small to ever make a name in UFC but he was really impressive and fun to watch. After his fight he came and joined some family members in the audience right in front of us. He enjoyed the rest of the fights while sitting on the stairs. And he kept taking pictures with people, posing with a fist aimed at their chin. I was going to ask if we could take a picture of him putting me in a rear naked choke, but I decided against it.
The next fight was one of the weirdest fights with a very disappointing ending. Nick Serra, brother of Matt fought, and basically gave up. I can't even really explain it, he jumped and landed on his back, then got up, got kicked in the leg, jumped again and never got up. It was ruled as TKO, apparently he said he could not continue.
The fight after that featured a quitter also. Carlos Moreno did not answer the bell for the second round after getting pounded by former Pittsburgh Steeler Carlton Haselrig.
A little bit before 9, when the CBS broadcast began, they announced that everyone could move down to fill up the lower levels. Evidently they only sold about 8,000 tickets, probably about half of the tickets available.
So everyone started making a mad dash down the steps to the lower bowl. Apparently they didn't alert arena security about this change because when we got down there an overwhelmed security guard was screaming into her walkie-talkie, "they're everywhere."
After that scramble we got pretty decent seats for the part of the card that would be televised live.
Brett "The Grim" Rogers came out to Busta Rhymes, live. Busta actually entered the cage and continued his performance while Rogers came out. Then Rogers knocked out John Murphy in the first round.
Murphy went to Syracuse University to play football but never quite made it, in a story that's too long to tell here.
Another quick knockout came from Joey Villasenor. He knocked out New York Bad Ass Phil Baroni who came out to an elaborate intro, then left in a cloud of shame. He used to be in the UFC but with a 10-10 record I can't see his MMA career going much further from here.
Then was the chick fight, Gina Carano vs. Kaitlin Young. In case you don't know, Carano is kind of hot. She was Crush on American Gladiators. And she can also fight a little. She landed a bunch of good shots, but also took some punishment before finishing off Young who was ruled medically unable to continue, after the 2nd round because of a nasty cut.
Carano didn't make weight, coming in 4 1/2 pounds over. Afterward she said she didn't really focus on her conditioning enough. She reportedly gave 12% of her purse to Young in order for Young to take the fight anyway.
The next fight was the worst of the night, but mostly because of the ending. Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith started off very slowly, not even touching each other for what seemed like an eternity. The bloodthirsty crowd even started to boo. But once these guys got going it was a pretty even fight. It was almost entirely standup with each guy landing a lot of good punches and even a few good kicks. Unfortunately late in the third round, Lawler poked Smith right in the eye. The fight was stopped for a doctor to check out Smith. After shining her light in the wrong eye, she eventually ruled that he couldn't continue. Smith afterward said he just wanted a few minutes, but once you tell the ring doctor you can't see, she's not going to let you get back in there and take more punches. The fight was ruled a no-contest, but the President of EliteXC immediately booked a rematch and said he would pay both fighters the winner's bonus. Smith admitted in his postfight interview that had the fight kept going he probably would have gotten knocked out, but he'd rather get knocked out than end in a no contest.
Finally we got to the main event, featuring internet legend Kimbo Slice. The place was a electric for Kimbo. Even though he's relatively new, the crowd was so into him. The atmosphere was really awesome, and that's the main reason I wanted to see this in person.
As far as the fight went, Kimbo displayed a lot of strengths and weaknesses, both. His ground game and his defense are a lot better than people might have thought, but he was still very vulnerable to the ground game. You could see that he would have killed James Thompson had they stayed up, but when he got to the ground Thompson dominated him. But Kimbo showed some incredible strength to basically push out of some holds. I don't think he was expecting this fight to be as difficult as it was, nor was he conditioned enough to fight three rounds. He was really getting his ass kicked at the end of the second round as Thompson had him down against the cage and was dropping elbows on him. It could definitely have been a stoppage but I think the ref held off because Kimbo was defending himself. He was moving his head and his arms to try to avoid the elbows, which I think was enough for the ref to keep the fight going. But Kimbo definitely got saved by the bell.
Kimbo was incredibly exhausted at this point, but he came out for round 3 and landed a bomb to Thompson's badly cauliflowered ear. The ear busted open then Kimbo landed a few more shots before the ref stopped it. I think the ref may have stopped it too soon because I don't think Thompson was out, nor do I think he couldn't have come back if the fight had gone on.
Maybe some people will talk about a fix, but I don't think so. And some people were suggesting that CBS would throw a tomato can against Kimbo just so he could get a win on TV. But Thompson was anything but. He was taking incredible shots, employing a perfect strategy against Kimbo, and doing some damage of his own.
A couple of other notes: there were dancers around the lower level and on the walkway to the cage the whole time. They were definitely local strippers.
There was a small baby at the fight, and a few seconds after we noticed that, the baby's mother started breastfeeding. Definitely not something we expected to see at an MMA event.
The timing was a disaster for CBS and EliteXC. I can't believe they allowed it to go almost an hour over the allotted time, especially since there were a couple of quick knockouts. I have no idea what the fuck they were doing half the time.
A lot of people DVR these things, especially young men on Saturday nights, and even though that doesn't matter for the ratings, if you want people to get hooked on this, you can't alienate them. Plus the Kimbo fight was so awesome, reducing its audience is a horrible mistake.
Also I'm sure local CBS affiliates were not pleased about pushing back the late local news.
All in all I must say I really enjoyed myself at this event. Overall I give the experience a B+ because two fighters quit, and the last two fights had disappointing ends. But all of the 5 CBS fights were very entertaining, and I hope EliteXC puts on more cards and attracts some more talent.
CBS has decided to dip its toe into MMA but instead of ponying up the extra cash for a deal with UFC, CBS basically created a new league called EliteXC. To market their new league they brought in internet sensation Kimbo Slice. Here's the fight that made Kimbo famous:
Kimbo has been training real hard and learning the ground game necessary to be a top MMA fighter. But he's not there yet. Chances are Kimbo would lose against the top guys in UFC, but I doubt they would let him lose in EliteXC because they're banking on him, he's headlining the first card on CBS on May 31.
jusTON and I (and possibly Mr. DiBern, formerly Mr. DiTen) are going to be a part of history as MMA makes its primetime network television debut live from the Rock in Newark. We're pretty sure Kimbo is going to win since they probably put him up against a stiff, but it should be a good experience. There's also a female fighter on the card.
Anyone wishing to attend this event with TON and me should let me know definitely by Friday May 23rd before 4pm eastern.
Traffic, dropping Diesel at the kennel and a ridiculous lack of sleep almost made Mrs. Poop and I late to the rehearsal dinner but we got there just in time to shower and hustle to the rehearsal for Bill to explain to us what a chuppah is.
At the rehearsal dinner, we practiced eating (I still know how!) and Mrs. Poop caught up on baby talk with Mrs. E-Z and Erin. The three of them even went across the street to a baby clothes store...and bought nothing.
Bill took a moment to introduce all of his groomsmen which led to the most inexplicable moment of the evening. When Bill was talking about me, Alison interjected "I swear they're separated at birth." Then Michael interjected "Mary J. Blige." I think he meant that Billy and I are brothers from another mother, and that mother is Mary J. Blige.
Friday night ended with everyone back at the hotel bar. Let me say this, I hate paying $7 for a beer ($21 for 3 yeunglings) but I really enjoyed the hotel bar. At these events I like talking to people I haven't seen in a while and the bar setup, with couches made it easy to hop from cluster to cluster and say hello to everyone, especially the people I don't see that often, like my long lost brother Smokey. And it's nice and quiet (I hate loud bars) so I could hear everyone, even Kristin who seemed to break out of her shell for the first time this weekend, which was nice to see. Plus when Pizza Parlor Derek finally walked in everyone cheered his arrival and he didn't even go upstairs, just started drinking with his luggage in the corner. After the hotel bar closed and they gave me my bill (I thought if you charge it to the room you don't really have to pay), I tried to get some sleep, as I was working on about 3 hours.
Mrs. Poop and I slept so late we missed the gay couples sight-seeing tour, but we did wake up early enough to get cheesesteaks for lunch, or so we thought. We sent Horse, Smokey and PPD to Jim's (or was it Rick's?), but the line was so damn long, that I didn't have time to wait, and Mrs. Poop and Baby Poop, didn't have the patience to wait, so Josh and I walked to Wawa. Wawa was a terrible way to introduce Mrs. Poop to cheesesteaks, but I enjoyed mine.
Then it was time for the wedding. We traveled around the city taking pictures in front of fountains, in front of the LOVE sign and in the middle of the street. Should be some cool photos for the wedding album.
The wedding was held in Philadelphia, so it was sort of weird, because you had this nice outdoor ceremony but you had the sights and sounds of the city.
There was a guy parallel parking a Prius, a hot girl on her way back from the pool, Horse staring at her, but most memorably, the valets somehow got stuck with a car that wouldn't start. So they were pushing this car, right behind the bride and groom, where we were looking, hard not to notice. But it was a beautiful ceremony, Billy stomped the glass easily on his first try, and he broke the glass, not his leg and the party began.
I love cocktail hours. And I was the first one on line and I took a huge plateful of shrimp, and yes I did offer them to Mrs. Poop, but she declined. I also had two Shirley Temples. I don't know who started the trend, but at the beginning of the night everyone was drinking Shirley Temples. The bartender told me that in 10 years of bartending he'd never served so many Shirley Temples to adults.
They also had lobster tails, which were delicious, and shrimp prepared several different ways. I don't know how many shrimp I had, but midway through my second huge plate, the ocean called.
Right after that they did a choreographed routine to "Candy Girl" by New Edition, but it was awesome and very creative.
All night the music was awesome, mostly because Billy (acting like Bridezilla) gave the DJ a very detailed list of songs and the order to play them in.
There was a hip-hop section and I could have sworn during "I Need a Girl" the ghost of my friend Coach came on the dance floor and sang "the sun won't shine forever but as long as it's here then we might as well shine together."
The night really started to pick up when he went into his "rock block" starting with "Living on a Prayer" and "Sweet Child O Mine." That had people, including the bride and groom, dancing on their chairs.
And speaking of dancing on chairs, we did a hora. No one loves a good hora more than me, but I felt a little lost without my partner in hora, TallSkott. Michael was a good substitute but too many non-jews were holding the chairs and I was calling for everyone to walk in circles, but it didn't quite work out that way. But most importantly, we kept the bride and groom upright.
The evening took a turn for the better when they brought out the Viennese/breakfast table. There was your normal assortments of cakes and cookies but there was also a chocolate fountain. Chocolate was flowing from everywhere. You stick something in there, and it comes out covered in chocolate. I wanted to stick my head under but Mrs. Poop forebade me. So I had some chocolate covered Oreos. Then I got to the breakfast part. There were pancakes, and sausage and yes bacon. And it was midnight. I took a little breakfast, in the hopes I could sleep later in the morning. So as I was about to eat my bacon I noticed I had a pool of chocolate on my plate from where the Oreos had been. So I tried it. Chocolate covered bacon isn't as delicious as you would think it would be.
So to recap at this wedding I ate: a lot of shrimp (if I had to guess I'd say more than 50), 2 lobster tails, 2 chocolate covered Oreos, 3 chocolate covered bacon strips, and I drank 2 Shirley Temples and about 10 beers.
Yeah probably 10 beers, which is why at some point I found myself manning a bottle of Tanqueray pouring it onto the ice sculpture and into the mouth of my fellow Redskins fan, Christian. I guess my judgment of what constitutes a shot was a little impaired at that point because the bartender came over and confiscated the bottles.
As the night came to an end a couple of special songs were played giving the groom a chance to do his Vabilla Ice Dance, and immediately the bride's family drew up annulment papers.
And then Billy instructed the DJ to play La Bamba and hand the mic to Horse. A very drunk Horse. A Horse who had been getting disgusted looks from Mrs. Horse for the last two hours starting with his magical attempt to make a lime disappear. Here's the back story on La Bamba. When Horse was just a pony, he had to learn the lyrics for a 7th grade Spanish class. He's remembered them and uses it as his go-to karaoke song. At Michael's bachelor party, Horse delivered a rousing rendition. Well, he tried to duplicate that effort and the crowd was really into it.
Regrettably, the wedding had to end, but that didn't stop the fun. Nor did it stop Horse. He began a sing-along on the bus ride back to the hotel. He started off with his second favorite karaoke song "To Be With You" by Mr. Big, the song that got him attacked on the DC Metro.
Other songs sung include "Hail to the Redskins" (by just Christian and me), "The Humpty Dance" (the girl behind me knew every single word and even admitted later that yes, she uses words that don't mean nothing like "loopid" and that she did once get busy in a Burger King bathroom. The next morning I saw her wearing a shirt that said "real women don't date Yankees fans". Needless to say, I like her.), "Before He Cheats" and several others that aren't worth remembering.
Those of us who didn't want the night to end (almost all of us) hung out in the hotel lobby til 4am.
I also want to give credit to the best man E-Z who did a great job with his speech which had something to do with a man named Horace, Wheaties and Viagra.
E-Z's speech was really about finding things you aren't really looking for. That must have been a theme for the weekend because in the elevator banks on every single floor was a huge, pentagonal cylinder full of Hershey's candy, thanks to a group from the candy company that stayed in our hotel. At first I decided to be judicious and I only took 3 York Peppermint Patties. But with each pass by one of these chocolate havens I became bolder and bolder. By 2am when I was drunk I grabbed as many as I could and when I woke up the next morning after getting yelled at for putting them on Mrs. Poop's pregnant belly, I counted I had taken 35 York Peppermint Patties (not including the 10 or so I'd eaten up until that point).
The next morning I actually woke up in time for breakfast which was nice because I obviously hadn't eaten enough so I stuffed my face with a ton of bacon and got one last chance to talk to everyone and say goodbye to the happy couple and wish them well on their honeymoon and to thank them for a beautiful fun weekend.
TON and Special K are now Mr. and Mrs. TON. It was a nice, quick ceremony full of the requisite retarded/uncomfortable faces by TON. A kind old judge led them through the paces they hit all the high notes "sickness and health, for richer for poorer," "with this ring I thee wed," and "you may kiss the pride," so TON did and then they were pronounced Mr. and Mrs. TON.
Then we went inside for some drinks and hors d'oeuvres. The best one was a shrimp wrapped in bacon, but it was a little messy. JLeary had a piece of bacon hanging out of his mouth, I had to go in the corner to eat one, but they were delicious. And the first time they came around four of us got them from the waitress and I was the only one to offer it to my wife. Not sure I would have if she weren't pregnant, but she declined. She knows how much I love food wrapped in bacon.
A little while later it was time for the best man's speech. Now, because I know TON from high school, but we also went to college together, I knew pretty much everyone.
It was nice to see good old BC again, RoachSU made it in for the wedding and Briles (formerly known as the Commish) was the 5th person from our floor freshman year at the wedding. I also got to see VinJuiceTang again. And the best part of that was that in a conversation with Vin earlier in the week I said he was going to be mistaken by everyone as a relative of the bride. Then when I was talking to him, someone came up to him and asked "are you related to the bride?"
And another SU alum, who made the trip in from Denmark was the best man P-O'T. He seemed kind of nervous but he was really funny and encapsulated TON and Kelly pretty well. Basically they like do crazy shit like skydiving, ice climbing and getting eaten by animals in Africa together.
One of the cooler parts of the wedding was when the band took a brief intermission and when they came back it was TON's dad on the keyboard along with his band he's been playing with for 40 years. Between the four band members they have ten kids, 6 of them have gotten married, and they've played a few songs and each wedding. They started off with "Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison, then went to "Gimme Some Lovin" by the Spencer Davis Group and finished with the all-time crowd pleaser, "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond.
TON even tried dancing, something he does reluctantly, and not very well.
But TON's cousins got the dancing genes in the family. When they band played "Play That Funky Music" two of them started getting down on the dance floor, ending with one of them taking off his shirt. Apparently this is a wedding tradition for him.
The second coolest thing at this wedding was one of those little photobooths where you cram in there and the flash goes off and you get a nice strip of 6 pictures of you and your wife/girlfriend making funny faces at each other.
In this case you took 6 photos cut the strip down the middle put three in album for TON & Special K and kept the other three for yourself. Mrs. Poop and I did this twice, we got some nice photos including one with the Concierge's hand behind me.
Focks, TallSkott and I tried to cram into the booth with varying degrees of success. When you have a head as bag as TallSkott's it takes up a lot of room.
But that paled in comparison to the fact that instead of wedding cake, the served cupcakes. They were so delicious I must have had about four...teen of them man.
At first I planned to have two, then RoachSU and I spotted a couple lonely ones, than TallSkott offered me one that was just sitting on our table, and then the Conciergette yelled at me. But they were freakin delicious.
Here's the crew from left to right: Brother of the Bride, TallSkott, Reissberg, TON (how did the groom get sent to the back of this picture?), The Concierge, JLeary, The Poop, Focks and VinJuiceTang.
And the ladies in our lives: Zorf, The Conciergette aka TallJulie, Mrs. TallSkott, MayMay, Special K (the bride), Mrs. Reissberg, Mrs. Poop, Mrs. Nails and Bauer's Mom aka Short Julie.
The Concierge celebrated his 29th birthday Saturday night at the Blue Owl in the East Village. It's down the street from a defunct gay bar, appropriately named "Dick's." The Owl is next to the local neighborhood rub-n-tug.
I was only involved in two conversations the whole night: people only wanted to talk to me about The Poop and Baby Poop.
Half the people wanted to make their own baby and half the people want to make The Poop.
Juice's new gal pal seemed willing to do anything to make the blog and I stupidly forgot to ask her to show her tits. TallSkott and I spent 15 minutes grilling Michelle (we want Juice to find someone special). The leggy 24 year old seems really cool and I think her and Juice will get along very well as long as they can keep their ADHD medications separate.
Funniest moment of the night of course goes to the Concierge on his own birthday. For some reason there was a locked door, behind where we were standing. We had no idea what was behind it, but The Conch said "I bet I can jimmy this lock in 10 seconds." Two seconds later he slams his credit card through crack in the door and 'click' the door opened. Turns out it was just a hallway.
Focks made it out despite his injuries. But here he looks like he's about to vomit on Julie's cleavage.
Juice and his new paramour wanted to dance (probably because neither of them can sit still) so they begged the DJ to play something other than 1920s jazz. Turns out he had an old Tribe record and played about 3 songs in a row. He also played "Respect" off "Ready to Die" and we argued about who the reggae singer was, I said Diana King and of course I was right.
The Blue Owl is the only Manhattan bar I've ever been in that's crowded at 10 and empty at 1. So we cleared out pretty early and while some went back to Focks's sister's to play Guitar Hero I went home secure in the notion that although the Concierge had gotten a year older, he definitely hasn't gotten a year more mature. And that's a good thing.
Master Bates, The Concierge, Nails and I made the trip to Philadelphia to see the Mets vs. the Phillies on Saturday afternoon. Because the game was a 4pm start we had plenty of time to get there and enjoy the stadium, lovely Citizens Bank Park. But of course, when I went to pick up The Concierge, he was still in the shower.
We did get to the stadium in plenty of time to walk around. The sports complex is huge, plenty of parking surrounding Citizens Bank Park, Lincoln Financial Field and the Wachovia Spectrum (the old Spectrum).
The concourse around the lower level of seats is what they call Ashburn Alley. Basically it's a wide, clean concourse, with the stadium on one side and restaurants and concession stands on the other. But they don't have typical concessions, they have cheesesteaks (Rick's and Tony Luke's) and bars (Harry the K's in the outfield) and each little beer stand has a different quality microbrew, and they are all actually cold.
Also along the alley is a Standing Room Only area, which actually surrounds the concourse on all decks. Some of the views are actually pretty good. I wouldn't want to stand the whole game, but I think the SRO tickets are only $12, so it might not be that bad. And the restuarants, you can sit there during the whole game and watch while eating and drinking and the views aren't bad. And restaurants tables are given out on a first come first served basis, they don't require a $100 deposit.
Once you get to the seats, all the seats are good, they are all pointed towards the field, and they all give you a nice view of the action.
I really hope the designers of CitiField take a trip to the Cit and copy or improve upon some of the fine amenities.
This game was also PSPCA day at the ballpark. Dogs available for adoption were entertaining fans in a special section of the concourse, but I didn't even go over to look because I know I would fall in love and Mrs. Poop would never let me adopt another dog. But they kept showing the dogs on the screen between innings, they all had baseball names (Schmitty, Pug McGraw, Slider) and I almost adopted Homer. Although maybe Homer was named after the Greek poet.
Once the game started the Mets gave us a good time, but you can read about that on the Recap.
When Carlos Beltran made a spectacular catch on a deep drive to center, right before crashing into the wall, I denoted it with a star in my scorecard. This is a practice I know Jems encourages, but evidently, the three idiots I went to this game with don't like this, as they asked for an asterisk on every play for the rest of the game.
The Concierge elected to take the Walt Whitman Bridge because he wanted to honor a famous gay American.
Philadelphia has some of the same between innings gimmicks that the Mets have. They do the Kiss Cam, and they played "Can't Get Enough of Your Love Babe," which is nice, but all the Phillies fans they showed were worried that their parole officer might see them on the big screen.
They don't have anything as fun as Learn Spanish with Professor Reyes.
At one point a dirty sweaty Mets fan proposed to his girlfriend on the big screen, she cried, said yes and then he rolled up his sleeve to show off his Mets logo tattoo on his biceps.
Speaking of biceps, the Philles employ a "Flex Cam" where sweaty guys in wifebeaters act like tough guys. Typical Philly.
Also typical Philly, we went to Geno's for dinner after the game. For the Concierge and Nails this was their third cheesesteak in 6 hours. We all ate steaks on arrival, but only Nails and The Conch opted for the Schmitter right at game time. The Schmitter is just a fancy cheesesteak, they use 3 pieces of cheese separating some fried salami, steak, tomatoes, and a special sauce. Master Bates was very proud of himself for rhyming Schmitter and shitter in a sentence.
Also typical Philly, cars park in the median, right in the middle of the road on some busy streets. I have never seen this before. Also a typical Philly greaseball (like the kind they show on FlexCam) was sitting in his apartment in his wifebeater leaning out the window. I only bring this up because as the Conch was driving, and complaining about Philly he said "look at that guy in the window." I have no idea how he saw him.
The Concierge and I didn't have too many arguments, perhaps because everytime we tried to talk Nails and the Master shouted out "they're arguing again." But we did disagree on Delgado's 2006 batting average, he said .265 and was exactly right. He also said Delgado would be within .015 of his career average at the end of this year. Assuming a like number of at bats from now until the rest of the season, he'd have to bat nearly .300 for the rest of the season.
The Concierge insisted that "Raging Bull" won Best Picture in 1980, which of course it didn't ("Ordinary People" did), and I think I could have bet him on it, but my initial offer was $1000 which Nails pointed out was a sure sign that I definitely knew I was correct. The Concierge also claimed that "I see dead people" isn't one of the most famous movie lines of the past 10 years, but Nails shut him down before he could spend an hour naming more well known quotes.
So it was a nice day trip to see a good ballgame and a nice stadium, and a good time was had by all.
Everything works in cycles. We are getting older and we're getting married. Bill is towards the tail end of the cycle in the Kliq as far as marriage goes. So this bachelor party was sort of a last hurrah, at least until Pizza Parlor Derek gets married, but that could take a while.
Life intervened and plans for Montreal were scrapped so we headed down to beautiful Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I don't golf so I skipped the Friday morning excursion in Delaware and the Thursday night trip to Buffalo Wild Wings where PPD managed to keep his fingers out of his eyes. You can read PPD's version of the events (which includes Thursday/early Friday).
On the trip down I called Bill and he told me they were on their way to Philly and they were going to grab something to eat ("we're not going to go out to dinner.") So I see a Roy Rogers on the Turnpike and I stop, maybe I would have anyway. I love Roy Rogers. One side note, I had been stuck in bad traffic at the northern most point of the Turnpike, then between exits 16 and 8a traffic was moving, but slowly. At exit 8A the traffic finally cleared and I was cruising. At that point I heard on the radio, "traffic backed up between exits 8a and 7a on the southbound side, for 13 miles". Totally untrue. This happens all the time. For the most part, traffic reports are complete bullshit.
By the time I arrive in Philly it seems everyone was waiting for me to go out to dinner. Bill is a douche. We walk to some sports bar. They say you can't get in with sneakers, until the saw 11 of us, at a time the restaurant wasn't very busy, so they decided to waive their no sneakers policy.
Instead of eating again I decided to drink my supper. At the time I was really pissed that out of 20 TVs, 19 were on the Phillies game and the other one was broken. But then I realized something that I've missed my whole life growing up in New York. We have two teams in everything. And in baseball and football, the population of New York City is split 60/40. In Philly everyone you see, everywhere you go, roots for the same teams. That's pretty cool.
After supper we headed to Show N Tel, which is a BYOB strip club. Because they don't sell alcohol it's full nude. And because you bring your own booze that are a lot of deadbeat lowlives.
One girl was wearing a very cute skirt/top combo with Phillies logos on it. I refused to give her a dollar.
Show N Tel has a thing called a hot seat. Basically you can bring a guy you hate and pay money to have a naked girl yank out his armpit hair, smack him in the face and twist his nipples.
I can throw a dollar bill and hit a balloon knot from 15 feet away.
Horse has sleep apnea. Michael and I diagnosed him while listening to his snoring and intermittent choking. Of course, this didn't bother me at all, I fell asleep in two minutes, but it kept Michael up all night. At 8 am he woke me and asked if I wanted to go to breakfast. I chose a few more hours of sleep and Michael enjoyed breakfast on his own, dining on french toast while getting annoyed by a gay waiter.
Saturday was paintball day. First we stopped at a local WaWa which has touch screen ordering which is a good thing but it can be very confusing. Because each screen presents you with a bunch of different options, if you get caught up in it and forget what you previously selected, you can end up with a tuna sandwich with chipotle sauce, provolone, pickles and sweet peppers.
If you ever have to get somewhere on time. Do not let Billy drive. Despite internet directions and several phone calls to the paintball place, we still made about 5 U-Turns including one where the sign said "paintball" with an arrow straight, and Bill made a right.
I'm not going to describe the paintball game in detail except to say some of us took it lightly, others took it seriously. Michael, Aaron and I had never played before and were just happy to run around like fools. Greco obviously plays a lot (even though it screws up his softball swing), as he came in full gear including a silly hat and a paint grenade. Horse also took it too seriously, as he does everything, and he pelted Josh with a barrage of paintballs that left Josh welted and furious.
Most of us bought paper thin camo suits which didn't really do much except make us look cool. PPD ripped his. It was fun to play but it was a little too hot and I tired quickly. I also got shot twice in the neck, which left huge red marks that look like hickeys. And one time I got shot right on the thumb which hurt so fuckin bad.
After paintball we went back to the hotel to clean up and get ready for dinner at Philly's finest steakhouse, Geno's or Pat's. We ordered in English and enjoyed our delicious dripping cheesesteak. I had wiz wid. I actually wanted peppers and mushrooms but Geno's only had onions.
Smokey having never been to either one, tried the steaks from both then offered a gourmet's analysis of the finer points of each one. I think he was disappointed that Boyz II Men wasn't out front singing "Motown Philly." This weekend did nothing to diminish the brotherly bond that Smokey and I feel towards each other. I really think I am more likely to be related to him than I am to Master Bates or Step On Me.
Saturday night we went classy and headed over to Crazy Horse Too. Things didn't really pick up until a group of African-American gentleman sat next to the stage with three huge stacks of bills. And they weren't just ones. The girls were loving it, and these guys were making it rain, heavily on the stage. Josh sensing an opportunity bought the guys drinks. And that kindness was revisited upon us tenfold at least. These guys were throwing so much money around, they easily spent 10 grand that night. At one point one guy threw a stack of 20 $5 bills onto the stage. And of course everyone was trying to guess their profession. They were either rappers, athletes or drug dealers.
The saddest place in the world is on the steps of a strip club at 3am, waiting for a cab that may never come. The girls were coming out in their sweatpants without makeup, and we were still sitting there.
This was made even sadder still by the fact that we don't have too many more of these opportunities left.
A rousing game of Taboo broke out at Focks' house in celebration of blonde Julie's birthday. The highlights:
My clue: "The gayest movie ever." The answer: "The Notebook." Shouted out immediately by jusTON who later had to explain to Special K that he really liked the movie and didn't think it was gay. He was simply guessing what I would think was a gay movie.
Mrs. Poop's clue: "she's on crack." The answer: Whitney Houston, by five people simulataneously.
The Birthday Girl's clue: Your moms are going through this --- The answer: Menopause, by all the women at once.
After getting only two points in his round, Juice retreated to the bedroom in a pit of despair. He later redeemed himself.
Victory over the vaginas by the testes.
Matt's hosting skills. TON ate like 34 chocolate covered strawberries.
