Another Excursion

Returning to Philly for New Year’s Eve seemed like a fun idea. I thought I’d get two birds stoned at once by dropping by NYC as well on my way back.  I kept pushing off my exact departure to the City of Brotherly Love as I engrossed myself in the bittersweet holiday spirit that accompanies visiting family in one’s hometown. It was one of those Christmases where one is able to surround one’s self for days on end in Yuletide cheer and then immediately be in loathsome moments of fierce family argument. No matter how hard you try to bite your tongue, pace your drinking and organize festivities who knows what’s going to come out of your mouth or into your body?

But enough about Jesus Christ let’s talk about the Devil’s birthday: New Years Eve. When I made it south of the border I was immediately disappointed that I would not be able to pick up any good cheap drugs. In spite of this upset I swallowed my pride and settled for some of those prescription anti-ADD uppers that seem to be so popular in the states. Every Canuck is overwhelmed by the many indulgences Uncle Sam has to offer. Not only are bars more abundant with better happy hour deals but there are also restaurants that often have cheaper and richer foods on every corner of the home of the brave. Thus, if I wasn’t go to get high I was certainly going to get fat.

Cheese-steak sandwiches tend to be more tourist attractions than an actually Philly delicacy, however I’ve had some of the best goddamn food of my life in that fair city. I checked out this deli I visited in the summer previous and shoved my face full of a concoction of hearty bread, salty cold cuts and bitter vegetables that almost gave me a boner. When I was leaving the establishment one of the patrons added the phrase “Be Safe” to his New Years’ greeting and this wasn’t the first time I’d heard those two words in Pennsylvania. I thought it odd that both the gangster Latino that sat next to me on the bus through New Jersey and the first person to sell me a six-pack of Pabst left me with the farewell “Happy New Year and Be Safe, yo!” As if they were trying to warn of some impending Philadelphia danger that I as a foreigner would naively walk into.  

My friends and I spent the count down to 2012 at a local bar and then made our way to a party. After drinking most of the day and helping myself to free liquor at the house party my awareness of what surrounded me was very much limited. The next thing I new I had my local friend’s house key in my pocket and was now only with people I had presumably met that very evening. At the same time I was hitting rails with a young lady on my lap and drinking champagne at a beautiful modern condo. I didn’t know how I got there but I was certainly enjoying myself. The girl on top of me asked if I wanted anything and I inquired if she knew how I could buy any of the stuff we were doing. She asked how much I wanted to spend – $40 seemed relatively not too high of an amount – and we followed some people up stairs. After a few lines for her and me in someone’s bedroom I went to make my way for the door yet was stopped and told to take the rest of “my shit” with me.  I had assumed my two twenties would have already been depleted but saw that I was still apparently and shockingly the father of a solid white ball the circumference of a quarter!

Needless to say one thing led to another and I awoke next to the lass I had met the night before. Her friends and me had a delicious gluttonous breakfast at a local establishment and drank our way to the Mummers Parade. I didn’t know what the fuck all those people were doing in those costumes and still have no idea what to make of everyone drunk out of their minds on the street. At one point I saw a guy driving a float take a swig out of 60oz bottle of liquor.  After 24 hours of heavy drinking, heaving eating and some fooling around I exchanged information with my femme fatale then met with my buddy on the other side of town before leaving for the Big Apple.

I only had about two days to kill in NYC and a lot of Charlie. I spent most of the time bumming around Greenwich Village and Soho always a little high as I went from bar to bar. I felt a lot like Lou Reed and was listening to The Velvet Underground in accordance.  In fact, as I was waiting to have dinner with someone I met in the East Village I noticed outside a used bookstore a beautiful coffee table book on the godfathers of protopunk themselves that I instinctively purchased. It would seem that events don’t always happen as one would expect but they can go be as exciting as they are regretful and there’s often a little irony thrown in.

In the end I probably cleaned off my credit cards only a few hours before crossing the border. I had met some beautiful random people, had some half-expected and very much yearned for experiences and got my fill of harmful vices – in other words: just another excursion.