The Penn Relays Track and Field Meet – arguably the greatest track meet in the world – took place this past weekend at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Being a former competitive runner, I made it a point to mark my calender months in advance in anticipation of the phenomenal event. Penn Relays has everything that a running fan could hope for in a track meet; exciting races, a historic setting, and an energetic crowd. The meet is sure to be an absolute blast for followers of the sport.
Although I was in Philly for the entire weekend, I didn’t watch a single race. Now that I think about it, I didn’t even see the stadium. Come on people, I’ve got better things to do than hang out at a fucking track meet. What better things, you ask? Seeing a puppet show and punk band of course!
On Friday night, Scottbrundage.com and I arrived at Philly’s best nerd hostel, Mockubunkport. We slammed some beers while watching downloaded episodes of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. If you’ve never seen the British sci-fi/medical spoof, then I highly recommend checking it out on youtube. One of Scott’s college “love” interests, Allison, invited us to her birthday party at 10 Stone in Center City. How could we turn down the request? We jumped into the MockuMobile and headed other there.
The scene was kinda bizarre. The party’s attendees included Allison’s coworkers, current boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, and our idiotic trio. Thank God for alcohol. We got smashed and managed to offend only one hipster in the establishment. Scott and Mocku did urinate all over the walls of the bathroom, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary. Mocku claims that he ran into Jeff Daniels (Harry from Dumb and Dumber) at the bar, but I’m convinced it was a Sparks mirage. We talked to a couple of girls until closing, but neither seemed to want anything to do with us. Once again, nothing out of the ordinary.
We headed over to Pat’s for some late-night cheesesteaks. After consuming the wads of grease and meat, Scott and I waited for Mocku by the car. From a distance, we could see him stumbling down the sidewalk, clearly too drunk to drive. We told him so once he got to the car, but he explained the situation: “Nah guys, I was just taking a piss while walking. I’m fine.” Who were we to argue? Arriving back to Mockubunkport, we soon passed out on couches half our size with the lights and television blaring. My standard Philly sleeping conditions.
On Saturday, we headed over to the 2pm showing of Animal Farm, staring Dave Johnse. Dave is an actor, currently performing in a puppet-rendition of the Orwellian classic. Before the show, I was grabbing a cup of coffee in Starbucks and met a super-cool girl named Erica. She informed us that she’s a bartender, and invited us to stop in for drinks later that evening. It would have been idiotic to turn down the offer.
Dave’s show was a blast, even with the annoying ADD kid sitting in the front row. My favorite part was when the animals overthrew Farmer Jones and his crew. Dave and the rest of the cast put on a great choreographed wrestling scene, which even included a sick body slam. Props Dave!
At this point of the day, I had planned on checking out some races, but Chuckblog VIP’s Catie and Danny came into town for the evening showing of Animal Farm. While enjoying some beverages and light-hearted laughs at Skinners, I made the mistake of inviting some random dude sitting alone at the bar to chill with our posse. He seemed like a decent enough fellow at first, but he turned out to be pretty fucking out of his mind. And by “out of his mind”, I mean in the uncool sense, as in he might have mutilated our bodies and murdered us later that night.
Things got wierd when he followed us to another bar across the street. At one point, I went to go use the bathroom, and he came in soon thereafter. I thought to myself “if we’re going to escape, this is the time to do it.” As I walked back to Mocku and Scott, I started mouthing the message, “If you want to leave…” at which point, Scott started shaking his head furiously before I could finish, and we darted from the bar. We left half-full drinks behind, being much more concerned with sprinting to avoid being caught by the dude as he walked out of the bathroom. It was a pretty mean thing to do, and we were fairly confident that the guy committed suicide after the incident. To get ditched by our group is deifnitely a sign of hitting rock bottom in life.
Next up on our itinerary was catching a performance by my friend Mark’s punk band that travelled in from NYC. The name of the band is Fucking Hell (FH), which sums up pretty much everything that the band represents. They’ve got a straight-up DIY, screw-everyone mentality, opposed to bands like Fallout Boy and whatever other group-of-the-year is conforming to their money-hungry record label. We picked up a case of Sparks before the show. I think it’s safe to say that 8 cans of Sparks per person is enough to let our hearts and blood pressure know who’s boss.
FH put on a great performance. In between songs, someone made the glorious mistake of yelling out “Voltron”, triggering Mocku’s nerd switch. He began yelling out a string of obscure, early 90’s robot-cartoon references, such as “Go-Bots”. People were either wildly amused or very confused. After FH ended, Scott accidentally cursed out a 10 year old girl at the show. I’m not sure of what’s more puzzling, the fact that a 10 year old girl was at a punk show, or Scott “accidentally” cursing her out. Soon thereafter, Mocku fell down the steps and broke the staircase. Needless to say, it was time to leave.
The mind-erasing effect of Sparks hit me hard after the show, so the details of the rest of the night are pretty fuzzy. We headed over to meet up with Erica, and kept our cool for the sake of her job. Knowing a bartender is very strange for someone like myself, as I’m so used to sneaking alcohol into bars via Lil’ Gibraltar. The next morning, Mocku said that I was so puzzled when I paid for less shots than were actually poured. I couldn’t grasp the concept of being given free drinks. I must consult with my scoundrelling mentor over this odd occurence. At closing, we headed back to Mockubunkport, resumed our positions on couches half our size with lights and television blaring, and packed it in for the night.
Thanks to all for the great weekend, including but not limited to SPA, Mocku, Dave, Danny, Catie, Erica, Mark, the residents of Chernobyl, and the makers of Sparks.
Chuckblog loves you more than Philly! Come back to me!
Hey Chuck, Orlando Bloom called. He wants his charm and good looks back.
Scott also pissed off an entire line of people waiting in line for the bathroom as he had some poor girl trapped in there with him as he fully disrobed while peeing.
Needless to say, he had some disapproving looks waiting for him outside.
Yes. Being fifth in line, a lil biddy walked up to me and the 4 dudes in front of me asking “What do we think about washing our hands?” I told her I was against it. Then she yelled that she was cutting everyone. A girl walked out and she ran in. Of course I had to follow her and prove that the baffroom is a sweetdude’s dojo.
So I run in and lose my shirt, drop trou and commence pee. She scrambled to get out while I finished my biz. I realized postmortem that I had cut everyone else in line. No one liked me on the way out. Whoopsy.
I was in the middle of reading this post when my friend laura called me to say ,”I’m listening to the gin blossoms.” Now I am having a hard time focusing. Let me scroll up…
The guy at the bar, was the perfect amount of awkward (very) for me to befriend. But then he called me weird, forget it!
Mocku’s string of robot cartoon shout out’s. I wish I was there. Thats almost as hilarious as listening to the gin blossoms.
It was a blast (as usual) having the opportunity to see youse guys. The first time we met up in philadelphia you were all trashed, this time you all had a couple drinks and we had some pretty intelligible conversations. The next visit, a completely sober meeting may occur, and I am scared…
I mean, really, who are/is YOU?
Sometimes I wake up in the morning, stare at myself in the mirror and ask myself that same question.
That random dude at the bar was definitely wacky, although I did find it amusing when he said “you guys are like nerds from high school.” So true…(sigh)
It was great seeing you and Danny. We shall meet again!
I also found it amusing that he followed that up with the most depressing story of the weekend:
“There’s this girl from that I really like. She’s really pretty and cool. We’ve been hanging out recently.
Last week I walked in on her having sex with my roommate. I still like her and I don’t know what to do.”