#fuck north east Philly

[headlamprey]

Sooo today I made a trip up to the Franklin Mills mall to try to do a survey with my friends, then hang out while there. I NEED to post about this, because OMFG I was not just immediately misgendered but then purposely misgendered multiple times by the staff at the survey place!!?!! They were SO INCREDIBLY RUDE!!!

The front desk lady didn't want to deal with me at all. I walked up and immediately she said Oh, we don't have anything for females. I was like thats fine because I am not a female!

This definitely messed up some circuits in her brain, because her original reaction was to IGNORE ME while going about her other business.

I stood there, waiting for her to come back to talk to me. Agh! but she was very clearly trying to pretend I didn't exist. So I asked, Hey so you don't have anything for females but I'm not a female so could you explain what's going on right now? Could you please explain? And YES I ASKED "Is this because I'm queer?"

She went over to her manager who was RIGHT NEXT TO ME and loudly misgendered me while saying I was complaining about being non-binary. Which, no, that is not what I was even doing, I was asking a question. AT A SURVEY PLACE. ANYWAYS. She continued to misgender me very loudly for well over a minute so I piped up with a Hey by the way you are still calling me "she"! More being ignored while now both of the employees of this place are PURPOSELY MISGENDERING ME?

I really was there just asking questions and waiting on friends and having these people be incredibly callous and smug and rude within a few feet of me. The manager did absolutely nothing besides be rude and the entire experience was so fucking CRINGE.

I left without causing a scene cuz uh. I really just wanted to eat ramen with my friends. Since the survey people decided to be transphobic ass hats, my one friend did pay for me thankfully.

Still, this shit makes me sick.

AND I KNOW LONG POST BUT

1749 Franklin Mills Cir #159, Philadelphia, PA 19154

That is the address where the two transphobic employees freaking treated me like shit on the bottom of your shoe.

Feel free to fucking bother these people, they were really awful and need to learn you can't just BE LIKE THAT WITH PEOPLE OMFG.

I'm tired as hell so I'm going to look more into it tomorrow, I don't think they should be allowed to treat people that way, and I'm glad it was ME since I'm a hardened old bastard myself. But seriously, if you are considering trying to get a few bucks? This place mostly just wants white "men". Oh yeah, I noticed that too. Since I was being ignored and standing around waiting to have a conversation, I had the time to notice a lot. Seriously, fuck them, I'm goin to bed and I will be kvetching about this a lot more later 😤😤😤😴

[grrrrrrrbarkbarkbark]

Dont get me wrong the "hey heres how to stay cool post" is important. But the fact that the north east is an after thought. Despite its going to be 70s-90s in the north west. And 80s-100s in the north east. And when you look at the maps it's mainly avoiding city areas in the north west. While hitting both NYC and Philly with tempatures that are going to be as hot as the literal Chihauhaun desert.

[roseband]

omg eric is doing an encore tour... that's what the giveaway final is.... flying ppl out to it

pls pls pls nyc pls

[mickjustmademylist]

I started following just because of your beef with Philly 💖

philly isn’t the worst US city but i truly believe that it is the worst north east city. as a jersey girl with new england roots, everyone knows that nyc & boston are far superior in terms of music, entertainment, city planning, and vibes. you guys go fucking crazy for ur sports tho and i appreciate that it’s an important part about being from the northeast

[henbased]

all the asks from miscellaneous for jude :3

THANK YOU BLUE ILU~~!!!

81. Are they bothered by the sight of blood?

Nope! Not really. There's the initial like, icky icky gross blah after being splattered with it, but she gets over it real quick.

82. What is their handwriting like?

In college Jude was a sorority girl. She wrote with big loopy bubble letters that’ve stuck around throughout the years, remnants of that cutesy style still very evident. It's neat, but not overly so. Small but spread out.

83. Can they swim? How well? Do they like to swim?

Yes! Growing up she went to the beach and the lake a lot; growing up in Philly, she was close enough to both bodies of water. She’s a good swimmer, having learned as a toddler for safety reasons. Getting blackout out by a lake in highschool/college was one of her favorite activities. Nowadays she prefers to just fish.

84. Which deadly sin do they represent best?

Wrath lmao she's so mean. Second would be either sloth or envy! She doesn’t like trying too hard (she took the cop job because it was easy), and she compares herself to other’s a lot and it brews resentment for them (it’s very noticeable with Joseph, and if you want me to elaborate on that lmk 👀)

85. Do they believe in ghosts?

I think she did, once upon a time, but with the loss of both her parents she doesn't really like to think of it. On one hand, if ghosts do exists, she'd hate for her folks to be lingering. On the other hand, if they don't exist, the idea that she truly is alone is terrifying. Best not to think about it.

86. How do they celebrate holidays? How do they celebrate birthdays?

THIS QUESTION was the hard one. I hate this question.

Her and her mom used to go all out for Holidays, especially after Jude’s father died. It was Their Thing. The death of her mother put a sour taste in her mouth for holidays, the way grief does. Joseph tried to do holidays in the bunker but it just caused arguments. Idk how Jude will handle it nowadays! She’s had time to confront her grief and it’s more like an old friend now. She can think of her mother without it suffocating her, so I feel like she might start taking strides to actually celebrate holidays.

She ain’t gettin’ Joseph a gift tho fuck him. 

87. What is something they regret?

Not listening to Joseph like all the Seeds said she should? Everything leading up to ending up in that bunker? The guilt of what her ignorance and pride caused nearly killed her in that bunker, and facing it all again is like a cruel punishment.

Instead of reflecting, she just ignores it. Can’t regret something you’re not thinking about, right?

88. Do they have an accent?

Yes, actually! Jude's from Philadelphia, went to school in North Carolina. It's not too thick, but distinctly east coast that sticks out like a sore thumb in Montana.

89. What is their D&D alignment?

She’s a selfish, true neutral baby. 

90. Are they right or left handed?

Righty!

91. If they were a tweet, what tweet would they be?

92. Describe them as a John Mulaney gif.

93. What’s the most iconic line of dialogue they’ve ever said?

I haven’t written much of official dialogue yet, but the first words she says to Joseph after waking up in the past is telling him to get out of her apartment.

I also dig what she says to Joseph: “You’d sacrifice the world and it’s people to satisfy your own Greed.”

[grenawitka]

I’m a follower not a leader so here we go with who i support for the NHL 2021 season (and a few other thoughts)

North: as always I beLEAF. I’m excited about the battle of alberta. Kinda scared about Vancouver, i can’t picture how the team will work TOO MANY CHANGES😩. I have hope for ottawa, oops. 

West: dont really care much about these teams but i do have a soft spot for the avs so ill probs be rooting for them🤞🏻

Central: GO STARS fuck tampa. Also, my son Janny is in ch*cago now and i am not ready to see him playing against dallas😭 it hurts.

East: Philly - if i was a team i would be philly and no, i can’t explain it. Also the isles.

[kircns]

⌜ •°  ✦  °• — HEY!! is that AVAN JOGIA? no, that’s KIRAN MEHTA, hanging out in BROOKLYN. they’re TWENTY-EIGHT years old and use HE/HIM pronouns. what do they do here? they’re A MUSICIAN and they’ve lived here FOUR YEARS. their favourite thing about the city is THE FEELING OF INVINCIBILITY, but they hate THE COLD. they pride themselves on being CAREFREE.

Kiran was born and raised in a small, suburban town in North Carolina. His father was an immigrant from India, but his mother had grown up in that same town. His parents met in college, at Duke University, and settled down in his mother’s hometown because at the time of their marriage, her mother had been sick and they needed to be nearby. 

His father is a lawyer and his mother a pediatrician. There wasn’t much room for creativity in their household, as Kiran was very much expected to follow the path of the straight and narrow. Kiran was always arguing for the sake of arguing, and his father would simple ruffle his hair and say he was born to be a lawyer. At 7, he’d never seen his father so proud as when he proclaimed, “I want to study at Duke and become a lawyer like Dad!” 

Of course, goals change. Kids who once dreamed of becoming a doctor, a lawyer, an astronaut, start to find their real passions — or, in Kiran’s instance, discover their short comings. School was not something he enjoyed and he tended to get distracted by doodling in his notebook or drumming his fingers against the edge of his desk. He learned guitar in secret  — it’s not that his parents were against music, they liked it just fine, but rock ‘n roll was not allowed in the house, and spending his free-time playing the instrument as opposed to studying was certainly not acceptable 

He discovered weed at 16, which was the first time he felt as though he escaped from the pressure. It was on a particularly enlightening trip that he decided: Fuck. This. I wanna be a Rockstar. 

So when his senior year rolled around, he didn’t actually apply to any colleges (though of course he’d told his parents he had). And when acceptance letters started, he teamed up with his best friend to forge a UCLA letter, where he told his parents he’d be attending for pre-law.

So August after he graduated, he took his car (an Audi that his parents had given him for his 16th birthday due to perfect grades, a report of which he had forged as well), and drove out to Los Angeles with his best friend, who was actually going to UCLA for computer science. His thought process was: I’ll get there, I’ll go to Capitol Records, I’ll play for them, and boom. Record deal. Obviously, that wasn’t so much the case. 

In December of that year, his parents discovered he wasn’t actually attending UCLA. Angry and disappointed, they cut him off, which left Kiran with an apartment he couldn’t afford (and was forced to vacate) and a suitcase full of his belongings. And his precious car, which he’d end up living out of on top of couch surfing for the next six months. 

And then, good news finally struck. A UCLA student, a friend of a friend of a friend, who was studying to be in the entertainment industry, had decided to take on Kiran as his project. He wanted to manage him — and, with the little luck he’d had in succeeding so far, Kiran agreed. Next thing he knew, he was being signed to a small, independent record label and was booking shows at small venues around Los Angeles, and then San Diego, and then Portland and Seattle, and he just kept on spreading. 

It had been two year after he graduated high school that he returned to the east coast, but he hadn’t gone back to North Carolina. This time, he was in New York City, and he absolutely fell in love. He played a small show in Brooklyn with not even a hundred people, but it was still perfect. He met a girl, who’d complimented his set, and who he briefly fell in love with for just the night, just for the hours that he took her back to his hotel room. In the morning that feeling had vanished, and he’d sent her on her way, promising to call. He’d since forgotten that promise. 

After a few shows in NYC, Boston, Philly, etc, he returned to LA. But there was always something missing out there, and he never felt quite right about it. At twenty-four, he decided he wanted to live in New York full time. By then, he’d gained a sort of cult following. He wasn’t famous, by any means, but he was playing to rooms of about 300 people, and his shows tended to sell out amongst the underground crowd. He moved to Brooklyn, renting out an apartment in Williamsburg, where he has remained ever since. 

Personality wise, Kiran can be a bit of a snob at times. His stage name is KIRAN. He’s super passionate about music but can come across as a bit pretentious about it. He’s a big lover, but he falls in love with everyone and everything. He can write a love song about someone one night, and write another love song about someone else the next. Has a very carefree, go with the flow attitude. Literally always playing guitar or humming a tune. 

Wanted Connections

Band Mates: Every frontman needs his band!  If there’s any musicians, a guitarist, bassist, drummer, and mayhaps keyboardist would be cool. I’m still deciding on the voiceclaim, but I’m thinking something like The Growlers 

That One Girl: This is mentioned in the bio in slightly more detail, but when he was twenty and came to New York on a mini tour, he met a girl after his show and they went back to his hotel. Of course he’d promised he’d keep in touch, of course he didn’t. NYC is a huge place, he never thought he’d see her again. Well...I thought it’d be a fun connection if he did see her again. All these years later ( nearly 8 years ! ), they randomly bump into each other in some thrift shop in Brooklyn, or some diner in Manhattan, or a brewery in Queens. Anything works ! 

Manager/Best Friend: This is kind of a specific request so I may have to put in a wanted connection for this, but Kiran’s manager was a UCLA student that decided to make Kiran his project. Kiran was the first artist he ever managed, and it’s been a whole decade, so the two are thick as thieves, even if they don’t always see eye to eye on everything. 

All I Need: This is a connection inspired by a song, lol. Kiran is bisexual, So this is open to any gender ! In the song All I Need by The Frights, the lead singer sings about their baby!! The Love of their life!! In a song later released, Whatever, he sings: “and i’m still messed up from when you said you didn’t love me thirty minutes before we played ten songs about your name. and this crowd is screaming back, as i had a heart attack, as i tried to play the lead as i yelled you’re all i need” Basically gimme an ex who broke his heart, an ex who he wrote a lot of love songs about and now they’re hard to play live ! He’s been living in NYC for the past 4 years, so any time within then works. 

Honestly everything ! Neighbors, enemies, frenemies, give me a ton of friendship plots because i seriously can’t get enough of friendships

[goldenworldsabound]

First Challenge I

The first in the Wendy Protection Squad arc! (Philly x Wendy x Shizuo poly V) When everyone arrives in a strange location, it’s a bit chaotic while they try to figure out what’s going on.

She couldn't remember what she was doing before - but suddenly she found herself standing in a forest clearing. She blinked in the forest light, nervously noticing that she wasn't alone. There were two men with her.

Shizuo hardly noticed the other man - his eyes were on Wendy. She looked...different, somehow. Her hair was purple, which was definitely not how he'd last seen her, and she looked confused.

Philly had already drawn a gun and was pointing it at Shizuo. Where the hell was he? Why wasn't Wendy reacting correctly? Hell, why was she in...that outfit? Something was off but he'd be damned if he let himself or Wendy die.

"Who are you?" Philly asked with a small growl. 

Shizuo raised a brow. "Put the gun away or I'll snap you like a twig." He clenched his fists. 

"Aah?! Like you could!"

"You wanna test me? If you threaten someone with a gun, you must be willing to kill, so you must be prepared to die-"

"St- stop it you two!" Wendy cried out, clutching her hands together in terror. "We only just got here, we're not enemies!" There were tears in her eyes. Both of these men were so angry immediately - it was a bit terrifying.

"I'm just being careful, Wendy, like you always ask for, geez." Philly responded, scowling. But he put the gun away and crossed his arms.

"I was perfectly content before he attacked me, Wendy." Shizuo explained, forcing the creases out of his brow and calming his expression.

"How do...how do you know my name?" Wendy asked, beginning to sweat.

Both Philly and Shizuo stared at her in confusion for a moment.

"Because I'm your boyfriend." They said in unison. They stared at each other for a moment, and then began to yell.

"You're her boyfriend?! No fucking way!"

"I don't know who you think you are but if you keep lying I won't be able to contain my anger much longer."

They turned to her. "It's me, right?" Philly asked, jabbing a finger at his own chest. Shizuo sighed.

"Let him know how long we've been together." Shizuo chimed in, looking away and gritting his teeth with the effort of remaining calm.

"Uh, um, a-ah..." Wendy felt herself begin to panic with their attention on her. "I've...never met...either of you." She flinched, expecting a poor response.

Both men seemed to deflate a little.

"But...how is that...possible?" Philly looked the most visibly distressed, eyeing the ground as he fought back the lump in his throat at her admittance.

"...I don't understand." Shizuo mumbled, putting a hand over his face. "You look a little different but how does that mean... you don't remember me?" He tapped his foot irritably.

"So, um, who are you, then?" Wendy asked, distressed by their reactions to her bad news.

"Heiwajima Shizuo." Shizuo said.

"I'm Philly, Philly the Kid..." Philly added, refusing to meet her gaze, still visibly upset.

"Look, um, clearly this has been a great shock to both of you, but...are either of you from...wherever we are now?" Wendy continued, trying to get things back on track. She had no idea where they were, and who knew what their loud bickering may have attracted already.

They both shook their heads. She sighed, putting her hand on her chin thoughtfully. She had been living an ordinary life, and suddenly she found herself in the woods with some sort of...Japanese bartender and a gun slinging man. And both of them thought she was their girlfriend.

"Whatever, let's go, we should stake out somewhere more defensible." Philly said, grabbing her hand and starting to pull her away and into the woods.

Shizuo grabbed her other hand. "Oi, not so fast! She may not remember me but I'm not just gonna let her go with you." Shizuo growled, tugging lightly. 

"Oh yeah??? I'm just trying to protect her, what are you doing?" Philly snapped back, pulling Wendy towards him. Shizuo's grip was iron though, so all Philly did was stretch her a bit.

"I don't know yet, we need to investigate the area before we just go off-"

"We don't need you-"

With each argument they tugged and pulled at her and she stumbled a bit between them.

"L-look as much fun as it is to have two attractive men fighting over me-" she froze, turning bright red at her own words. It had the desired effect despite her slip of the tongue. Their grips loosened and they stared at her.

Shizuo blushed, pushing his sunglasses up with a finger almost nervously. Philly laughed, unable to stop grinning.

"Well if ya like what you see, maybe you can agree that you mighta dated me?" Philly said, with a flirty eyebrow wiggle, squeezing her hand gently.

Wendy swung her arms, still holding their hands, brows furrowed as she thought. they both watched her intently.

"I suppose...I mean, Shizuo, you said that I looked different, right?" He nodded at her words. "And Philly-"

"Yeah, yeah... you don't look quite the way I'm used to. And you... don't behave the same. You're...softer." He fought back the lump in his throat again, clenching his fist to his side to resist stroking her face.

"So what should we do?" Shizuo asked, meeting both Wendy and Philly's gaze. "We shouldn't just stay here."

"You talked about investigating, right? Maybe one of us can climb a tree and get a feel for the lay of the land." Wendy suggested. "Then we can figure out where to go."

"Got it." Both men relinquished their grip on her hands, heading to a nearby tree which appeared to be on the thicker side. They glared at each other. 

"We don't both need to do it." Philly growled.

"So let me do it. It'll be faster, jackass." Shizuo found he was losing his patience.

"What did you call me?!" Philly shouted back.

"Ah, okay, here, one of you definitely should stay and protect me, right? So how about Shizuo goes, since it was his idea?" Wendy intervened, nervous about their bickering. The men agreed begrudgingly.

Philly leaned against a different tree, sighing to himself as Shizuo climbed. He lit a cigarette and began to smoke. Wendy wandered over to him, shy, but curious. He noticed her looking and smiled wryly.

"What's up?" He asked.

"Well...we must have been pretty close, judging by, um..." she trailed off.

Philly blew some smoke. "Heh. Yeah. More than close. You were...the most important thing to me." At her worried expression, he course corrected. "But that's, ah, I'm sure we'll figure this out and get you back to normal." He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

"Yeah, sure..." back to normal...what did that really mean? She wasn't sure. "Um...what are your tattoos?"

He held out his arm to her so she could see it better. "Just, just...just some numbers." He felt his heart fall at the thought of explaining to her that each one was a death. No, he was not going to do that right now. Hopefully it just wouldn't come up.

"They, um...they look cool." She admitted. She met his gaze and blushed immediately at the tender look she saw in his eyes. The way he softened as she put her hands on his arm to trace the tattoos. He seemed entirely different from when he'd been arguing with Shizuo.

"Thanks." He said. "You're pretty cool yourself." He added, rubbing his thumb on her cheek. She stared at him, heart pounding. 

Shizuo dropped down from the trees with a loud thud. Wendy jerked away from Philly like a child caught misbehaving.

"Shi-Shi-Shizuo! What did you see?" She asked nervously. Philly frowned behind her, but said nothing, following a bit behind as she walked up to Shizuo.

"There's rampant destruction to the north. Flattened trees, things like that. To the east there are some rocky outcroppings at the edge of the forest." He paused, choosing his words. "There are...walls, at the edges."

Philly furrowed his brow. "What the hell do you mean?"

"If you go far enough east you'll hit a wall. Or far enough west. Or north. Or south. Any direction. We're in some sort of...enclosure." Shizuo responded calmly.

"That's...ah... really weird." Wendy looked up to the sky, squinting, trying to make out a wall above them, but failing to find one. Just blue sky and clouds...

"I think we should head to the rocky outcropping. Set up a base there." Philly suggested. "Easiest way to protect our backs."

They headed east.

[fan-art-ic]

@crowleyraejepsen

Look turns out I don't know enough about Philly to make a Philly regional, but I DO know enough about my suburbs baby so let get cracking

Crowley is the reason for all of these goddamn potholes and then the reason why when the roads gets so bad to get repaved there's never any fucking dividing lines

Aziraphale hates Borders and Barnes and Noble, so he's torn when they start getting shut down bc on one hand they were chain book stores but on the other hand lots of people used them to read and they're getting shut down bc Amazon

Crowley is the maniac who will go 90 on 232 despite the fucking 5mph turns

Crowley and Aziraphale both agree that the old state store had aesthetic and that the new one is uglier then Hell

Also Crowley loves to go to Ultrazone and tag out every single person and basically get a miraculously high score and win. Everyone is then angry and takes it out on the arcade

All of our parks suck but yknow what we have? Lots of malls, so basically Aziraphale and Crowley just go on walks while window shopping and Crowley will sit in the massage chairs and not actually use them while waiting for Aziraphale who puts a whole $15 in it

They get dinner at the food court

Aziraphale is responsible for the people who let you know you dropped your wallet and Crowley nudges people into just taking it for themselves

Philly Pretzel Factory

Also Aziraphale misses Genaurdi's bc they had the best pizza and hates the McCafferys that replaced it

They go out to dinner at Ota-Ya (and bc it's BYOB they get super sloshed)

George School is something they both report as a success

But Crowley takes credit for CRHS North

Aziraphale thinks he LOVES Sesame Place, but once he gets there he's always irritated and exhausted (but at least Crowley make it so they somehow are always at the front of the line)

Adam was raised in either Doylestown or New Hope

Crowley always honks at NJ drivers, fulfilling all of us East Pennsylvanians' dreams

And on that note Crowley is also responsible for the utter clusterfuck the Bustleton Pike is with its goddamn intersections

Aziraphale always tips the Door Dash people like a hundred dollars (so does Crowley)

[franciscretarola]

South Philly: A Love Story

(Photos by Francis Cretarola) The names of some (but not all) of the people in this otherwise truthful account have been changed to protect the guilty and the innocent, as well as my own ass.

As Cathy and I rounded the corner on Morris and turned onto our block of 13th (the “Miracle” stretch that, from the day after Thanksgiving through New Year’s, becomes a tourist destination that can be seen from space), I noticed the ambulance parked midway up the street. And my heart sank. They’d already loaded in whomever it was they came for, but I saw that it was stopped pretty much in front of Joey’s house. Joey is what I call an “original,” one of the people who were here when we first arrived more than twenty-three years ago, the mostly Italian-American neighbors who’d created this neighborhood and for generations defined it. Most of my block is still comprised of originals and their spawn, but it would be accurate to say that their impact on the character of the neighborhood is growing ever more muted.

I’d not seen Joey much recently. Just the odd sighting of him doing his constitutional walk around the block, moving a lot slower than he once did, and seeming a bit preoccupied. When we first arrived in the neighborhood Joey was already in his sixties, but a force of nature. Just over five feet tall, thin but solidly built, looking exactly like men of that age I’ve seen all over southern Italy, Joey’s physical stature belied the massive impact of his personality. He was generous, quick to offer a hand, free with his opinions. We never dove into politics, but we might not have been on the same page. At block parties he danced (to doo-wop, the “Grease” soundtrack, dance hits from the ‘70’s), in Cathy’s words, “as if no one was watching,” his arms punching the air in front of him, his legs pistons that fired in place. In these moments his face always revealed angelic contentment. Joey was a hell of a lot more comfortable in his own skin than I’ll ever be. His voice, again out of proportion to his diminutive size, boomed. From the inside of our house, I always knew when he was on the street.

His voice boomed in disconcerting ways when he harangued my brother and me for our ineptitude at bocce. Though completely inexperienced, we’d joined the street’s team playing in a league at the Guerin Rec Center (sponsored by a chiropractor, our team was called The Backbreakers). One of the teams we played was made up some of the guys from Danny and the Juniors. When they’d win, they’d sometimes break into a verse of “At the Hop.” It chapped our asses. It was meant to chap our asses. Breaking balls in South Philly is an honored and cherished tradition.

It was before one of these games that I learned something else about Joey. We were huddled outside, waiting for the doors to open and whining about the winter cold when he, out of nowhere and offhandedly, told us a story that stopped our bitching in its tracks:

“When I was in the army in Korea, it was so fucking cold our rifles froze. Couldn’t load ‘em. Couldn’t shoot ‘em. We had to piss on the works to get them working again.”  

It shouldn’t have been a surprise that an old guy from South Philly had dealt with stuff that would’ve put me in a fetal position. These are tough people. And this was a good reminder.

Cathy and I arrived in this neighborhood in 1996. Coming here changed everything for us. Without exaggeration, I can say that had we never settled here I’d never have become proficient in Italian, we’d never have lived in Abruzzo, and certainly never opened Le Virtú (our neighborhood trattoria dedicated to the cuisine of Abruzzo). We owe South Philly everything. And we’ve seen and been a major part of the changes to the neighborhood and East Passyunk Avenue, changes that have been breathlessly celebrated and discussed in local media. The demise of old South Philly has been frequently, enthusiastically, and prematurely reported in stories that have ranged from sensitive, thoughtful treatments to obnoxious, oblivious hit pieces. It’d be disingenuous for us to say we’re not happy about some of the changes. But it’s equally true that we miss a lot of what’s been lost, have mixed feelings about what’s filled the void (including our own roles in that), and would miss what’s left were it to vanish. When old South Philly goes, the country will have lost one its last original and truly great places. Were it to go during our lifetimes, we’d probably pull up stakes. There’d be no “here” here. We came to South Philly because of what it was, not what we thought it could become.        

Rowhome life is familiar to me. I was born and raised up the Schuylkill in Reading, PA, in a blue-collar, predominantly Polish and Slavic neighborhood on the city’s southeast side. My mom’s parents, who also lived in our neighborhood, were “shitkickers” from rural North Carolina who’d moved to Reading for jobs in the textile mills. My dad was Italian-American. When I was a boy his father, from Abruzzo, lived in the house with us. Six of us - including my brother and one of my sisters - lived in a rowhome that would fit inside the one Cathy and I now occupy alone on 13th Street. Reading’s Italian section was gone by the time I was born, but my dad’s friends from that old neighborhood, a tightly knit group of half a dozen guys - partners since grade school in activities both benevolent and (mildly) nefarious - were more a part of our lives than blood relatives. We referred to them as “uncles.” From my grandfather, I got stories about the old country and about being an Italian immigrant when nobody here wanted Italians (he arrived in 1909, one of over 183,000 paesani to make the voyage that year). He explained why he changed his name (from Alfonso Cretarola to Francis Cratil) to avoid prejudice, warned about the KKK who hated Catholics and immigrants like him, spoke reverently of FDR, and taught me and my father before me to root for the underdog. From my dad’s friends I learned a lot, too: how to argue passionately without forgetting you loved the person you were arguing with; how to instantly forgive and when to hold a grudge; how to relentlessly and inventively break balls (the pedestrian insult can boomerang, resulting in a loss of status); numerous mannerisms and off-color Italian expressions and hand gestures; that morality ran deeper than legality; and - above all else - how to show up when a friend was in need.

They had a pinochle game that rotated from house to house. Games would often go on into the early morning. These were raucous, intensely competitive affairs, and master classes in Italian-American culture: music (Sinatra, Prima, and Martin); language (I heard “minchia” so often that I took to using it in conversations with school friends, not knowing it meant “cock,” often playing the role “fuck” does in English); casual volatility, sudden explosions of anger and joy; and food (platters of sausages, meatballs, provolone, capocollo, sopressata). Once, during a game at our house, the doorbell rang, and I went to answer. (I was in about 6th grade). I opened the door to a cop. He asked if the local district justice, one of my dad’s friends, was in the house. I led him to the game in the dining room. He approached the table, hand on his holster, and yelled that the game was busted. For a beat or two, the men at the table looked up at him in silence. Then the judge exploded with a “Vaffa…” and the room erupted in laughter. The cop sat down, had a bite to eat, and left after a few minutes. He’d just wanted to break balls.

So I felt prepared for South Philly. But it still surprised and (usually) delighted me.

We moved into our house in November of 1996. Coming from the paesano-deprived wastelands of Washington, DC, where we’d been living and working, the neighborhood was a paradise. Everywhere I turned were ingredients and foods that could then only be found in specialty stores in the District. There were six bread bakeries within a five-minute walk of my house - good bread, too - and three pasticcerias. There were three butchers inside that radius, including Sam Meloni’s a half a block away on Tasker. We had the Avenue Cheese Shop, Cellini’s, and Phil Mancuso’s as provisioners and, for rarer stuff, DiBruno’s and Claudio’s not too far away on 9th. The hoagie options were overwhelming. Fresh fish was a block away at Ippolito’s. And I’m just talking about the east side of Broad. Ritner Street west of Broad was, and remains, an oasis for anyone seeking Italian flavors. Dad’s Stuffings, Potito’s, and Cacia’s bakery (the tomato pie, but not just) are regional treasures. Cannuli’s Sausages is a full-service butcher shop, where they make a liver sausage taught to them years ago by women from Abruzzo. North of Ritner, on the 1500 block of South 15th, there’s Calabria Imports: sopressata sott’olio, provolone and pecorino cheeses, condiments from Calabria. I gained ten pounds the first few months in the house. And I didn’t care.

But South Philly’s more than a colorful, urban food court. There were/are rhythms, ways of being, and a specific sense of community. Oft-disparaged, stereotyped, and dismissed, the originals in the neighborhood made - and still make - it singular. They’ve provided some of my favorite memories.

My first night out drinking in the neighborhood, I went to La Caffe (now defunct, even the building’s gone) at 12th and Tasker. It was a typical, no-frills corner joint. There were three guys at the bar, all of whom gave me the side-eye as I bellied up. This was long before dedicated hipster ironists started mining the neighborhood for material. My hair was halfway to my ass then, and Italian American wouldn’t be the first, second, or third ethnicity you’d guess when taking in my mug. I wore a vintage Phillies jacket to at least establish some bona fides. I ordered a double Stoli. The guy closest to me gave in and asked what my story was, and a pleasant conversation ensued. We’d reached the point - which used to be a thing - of doing shots of anisette (a practice that, while amicable, often turned a pleasant night’s buzz into a pitiless banshee of a hangover), when the door opened, and a hulking guy, already in his cups, came in clutching a big paper bag under his arm like a football. He was warmly greeted, so, I construed, a regular. He set the grease-soaked bag on the bar, pulled it open and announced: “I got pork sandwiches for everybody!”.A round of roast pork with sharp provolone and broccoli rabe, Philly’s true classic sandwich (the cheesesteak is a pretender to the throne). Welcome to the neighborhood.

The days leading up to Thanksgiving, decorations start to go up: lights; inflatable Santas, snowmen, and Grinches; lights; wreaths; candy canes; nativities; Christmas balls; more lights; plastic holly; tinsel; real and fake evergreen trim; ribbon; additional lights; a giant Snoopy; some elves; and then, finally, the serious lights. This was all pretty much spontaneous, nothing like the organized/enforced effort that now creates the so-called “Miracle on 13th Street.” On Christmas Eve, we were more or less forced at the ends of loaded cannoli into the homes of neighbors to drink wine, anisette, sambuca, rum, and whiskey, and to make our own “plates” from vast spreads of Italian comfort foods. The warmth and good feeling were contagious. And the desire – a need, actually - to share, the humbling generosity, was something I’d only experience again when we began traveling in Abruzzo. My neighborhood in Reading had been close, but nothing like this. The New Year rang in with neighbors returning from dinners and parties in time to bang pots and pans in the middle of the block. The next day, houses up and down 13th and on the cross streets were open, offering neighbors and sometimes complete strangers hot drinks, food, and a bathroom as the Mummers strutted up Broad. It’s never been the same since they changed the parade route.

Our first spring in the house, I was in the kitchen making dinner - roast pork, spaghetti and meatballs - and looking longingly out the window. It was the first real beautiful day of the season. Clear blue skies, about 70 degrees, no humidity. I stepped out into our yard to soak it in. We’ve got the typical tiny South Philly concrete pad; nice for a garden if you’re game, maybe a fig tree (a few of our neighbors still have them). We’d yet to buy yard furniture, and I was regretting it. Cathy stepped out, and I mentioned that, but for the lack of a table and chairs, we could eat outside. “Next time,” she said, and we went back in. Minutes later we heard banging at the metal backyard gate. We opened it to find the old woman who lived in the house behind ours standing in the narrow alleyway. Born in the “Abruzzi” and always dressed in black, she stood less than five feet tall. In heavily accented English, she said “I give you table and two chairs.” She’d been pruning her rose bushes and heard us talking. She led Cathy through her yard and into her kitchen where she had a plain, white plastic table with matching chairs. We were speechless. “I no use anymore. Take,” she said.  

The neighborhood landscape was a lot different then. Its mien, too. Before there was the East Passyunk “Singing Fountain” at the 11th Street triangle, the spot was occupied by an old gas station turned hoagie shop, Cipolloni’s Home Plate. Joe Cipolloni was a neighborhood kid who’d been a catcher in the Phillies’ farm system. We hit Joe’s for a medley of hoagies one of the first nights we crashed in the house. Franca Di Renzo’s venerable Tre Scalini was then across from the triangle on 11th. The Di Renzo family’s been serving food on the Avenue almost three decades now. Their departure (announced as I was writing this), is a dagger to the heart. Frankie’s Seafood Italiano (which memorably used the “Mambo Italiano” melody in its radio advertisements) was catty-corner from Franca on Tasker. On East Passyunk there was also Ozzie’s Trattoria and Rosalena’s; Mr. Martino’s Trattoria, Mamma Maria’s, and Marra’s  were  where they still are today. Walking into a joint meant being warmly greeted with a “Hon,” “Cuz,” or some other friendly moniker. Service was always personable, attentive, and familiar, like you were an old friend. For the life of me, I don’t know what the objection - frequently voiced in amateur and professional reviews - is to this style. Why come to one of the country’s most unique places and ask them to conform to your expectations, change character? Or mock them for who they are? You’re a guest in their neighborhood. Let them be who they are. Roll with it. How self-important, fragile, or far up your own lower digestive tract must you be to be traumatized or offended by “Hon” or the like? What kind of bloodless, sterile, frigid, suppressed, affection-deprived “family” environments produce such specimens? ‘Merigan!

Transactions at restaurants and stores in South Philly weren’t solely financial in nature. They involved human exchanges, real conversation beyond any purchase, interactions that formed some of the neighborhood’s connective tissue. I know that some of the new arrivals in the neighborhood regarded this as a time suck: “Why am I waiting behind this ambulatory fossil while she recounts, for the fifth time, her late husband’s illness, her son’s family’s impending and unapproved move to Jersey, and her plans for the Padre Pio festival? I just want to buy my damned provolone and go!” While an understandable complaint, it was also oblivious. These conversations created and maintained community. Walking into Sam Meloni’s butcher shop was, for me, as much for social reasons as it was to buy meat. The family shop had been at the corner of Iseminger and Tasker since 1938. Sam - in his late sixties and more alive than I’d ever been in my twenties - held court behind the counter, Jeff cap rakishly turned backwards, his expressive faccia usually wearing a wry smile. Entering the store meant immersion in the perpetual, playful, multi-subject argument between Sam and his nephew Bobby - a big, imposing, but sweet dude - and their straight-man assistant, both damn good butchers themselves. You were brought into the fray, asked to weigh in and choose sides, and then identified as an ally or unreasonable bastard. I would go in for some chicken cutlets and walk out nearly an hour later with the chicken, veal scallopini, chicken meatballs, and, most importantly, renewed faith in humanity. Sam’s family was from the town of Campli in Abruzzo’s Teramo province. My family’s also from Teramo. So, we talked a lot about the old country.  Once, during my first bought with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, I walked over to Sam’s for some cutlets and Italian water, the Lurisia stuff Cathy loved. He was alone in the shop that day. He knew what was going on – I’d had my involuntary “chemo haircut” (much of it had fallen out) and my skin had turned an alluring shade of gray. He rang me up then asked how I was getting home. I lived less than a block away.

“I’m walking, Sam.”

“No. No you ain’t,” he snapped.

He washed his hands, brushed himself off, grabbed my stuff, and locked up the shop. And he drove me home.

We were in Italy when Sam passed. It was an aggressive cancer. Friends of ours, who’d recently moved to the ‘hood and fallen in love with him and his place, went to the memorial. They said that there were photos of Sam from all through his life. A lot of shots from parties. One taken “down the shore” showed him carousing with his friends on the beach, their towels surrounded by “dead soldiers,” empty bottles of booze. Sam had fun. Our friends also mentioned the score of unescorted older women at the memorial. Sam had been a committed bachelor until the end. His nephew Bobby died, also of cancer, only a few months later. The shop closed.

Immersed in this Italian-American bubble, I felt waves of nostalgia, yearnings for the sense of belonging my dad and his friends clearly had in their boyhood enclave (as much as I loved it, I would never be from South Philly, and we’d been transplants to the Polish/Slavic quarter in Reading), and a desire to connect with my roots. Everywhere around me I’d see older, Italian-born guys – hair (or what was left of it) closely cropped; face shaved but casting a shadow by mid-afternoon; height a little over five feet; build thin to stocky, but solid; pants belted and hiked to the midsection; shirt tucked and buttoned to the neck; handkerchief in the back pocket; shoes plain, of leather; sartorial mien somber – who reminded me of my grandfather. These guys and their wives are usually quiet, reserved.  They keep to themselves, cook and eat at home. Which is maybe why the newcomers moving in and journalists perfunctorily writing about South Philly often don’t seem to notice them. A lot of them used to congregate at the now-defunct Caffe Italia west of Broad on Snyder. But they’re still around, hiding in plain sight. Many of them, I’d discover, were from villages near where Alfonso had been born. Listening to them speak a language familiar but, really, impenetrable to me became intolerable. I wanted to understand where all this stuff around me had come from, the place that’d shaped Alfonso and, to a lesser extent, my father and myself. So, with Cathy’s permission (she’s a mensch), I quit my job writing and copyediting for a publisher out of Maryland and made the first of my extended trips to Italy to study the language, first in Florence, but later and more intensely in Rome. My studies provided me the key to exploring and understanding Abruzzo - a wild, beautiful, mostly untraveled region, and the point of origin for many of South Philly’s denizens - and penetrating, just a little (the community can be justifiably suspicious and guarded), the native Italian component of my adopted neighborhood.

It wasn’t too long after our return from an extended stay, with our two Jack Russells, in Abruzzo that we met, befriended, and – in a move that determined our future road and made Le Virtú possible but which for a short while caused us crippling anxiety and provided a window to hell – started working with a chef from Napoli operating on the west side of Broad. This guy – let’s call him Gennaro – prepared the real-deal cucina napolitana. No compromises, nothing elaborate, just the genuine article. Working with him was our intro to the biz. Luciana, our opening chef at Le Virtú, was a frequent dining guest and then, after Gennaro ominously disappeared one weekend, his sometime substitute in the kitchen. Gennaro, who we discovered too late had a history with illicit substances and a taste for expensive wine that someone else had paid for (chefs, the little dears! It’s always the Aglianico, Amarone or Barolo, and never the Nero di Troia), gradually went off the rails, slipping into legitimate mental illness. When out of paranoia he asked a busboy to frisk a customer because the guy was speaking in Neapolitan dialect (your guess is as good as ours), we cut bait. My last sight of Gennaro was on my stoop around midnight, asking for the phone number of a former server, a young girl he’d become convinced was the Madonna (not the singer, but Christ’s mom, of immaculate conception fame). When I denied his request, he produced a knife, and I a baseball bat (what else is a vestibule for?). I was chasing him up the street, bat in hand, when I locked eyes with an incredulous cop in his cruiser (not the first time this had happened, by the way). I flagged down the cop and he took Gennaro away. The whole thing was our first restaurant “cash-ectomy,” but my brother and Cathy had developed a taste for the biz. So, we were in, just not with Gennaro.

But before it all turned to merda, Gennaro provided – and subsequently burned – bridges into South Philly’s discrete, native-born community. We frequented expatriate clubs, visited in homes, met, dined with, and came to know many of our Italian neighbors. Language was crucial to that. And it proved crucial to repairing the damage Gennaro’s erratic behavior was continuing to cause in the neighborhood after our breakup. As part of the reconciliation with the neighbors, we were invited for dinner at the home of a family from Basilicata, the soulful, beautiful, but economically and historically screwed region at the instep of The Boot (between Puglia to the east and Calabria and Campania to the west). The head of the household – let’s call him Domenico - had been a semi-regular at Gennaro’s place and had watched his gradual decline. It was Domenico who’d come to us with stories of Gennaro’s increasing madness and how it impacted the street as, in our absence, it all went off the rails. We did all we could to clean up the messes, settling Gennaro’s accounts with purveyors, apologizing to neighbors. In the meanwhile, Gennaro escaped, first to Jersey and the employ of a well-known, native-born restaurateur, and then permanently back to Napoli. Once returned home, his old habits and illnesses caught up with him. He didn’t make it. Domenico’s mother - short, whippet-thin, in her seventies, and a non-English speaker – cooked for us and his family. It ranks among the best and most authentic Italian dining experiences I’ve ever had in the US. The décor of the rowhome was completely old-world, the lighting soft, the house immaculate in the way only immigrant homes are, a purposeful demonstration of work ethic and pride. Nothing she made was remotely elaborate, just all beautifully done. Beyond the perfection of the homemade pasta, the simplicity and delicacy of the grilled and fried antipasti, the generous portions of wine and digestivi, I most remember the image of this woman, visible from our table, relentlessly at work for hours at the kitchen stove, a culinary machine. She produced course after course, never sat down with us, never stopped moving. It had to be nearly midnight when she reluctantly emerged from the kitchen to accept our thanks and unconditional surrender.

By the time we opened Le Virtú in October of 2007, the demographic changes already at work when we arrived had greatly accelerated. Fresh diasporas from Mexico, Vietnam, Cambodia, and elsewhere filled the gaps (and storefronts) left by Italian Americans. The sons and grandchildren of Italian immigrants often didn’t want to carry on family businesses or wanted to pursue a suburban style of life (that I’ll never understand, and the idea of which gives me the fantods). These new arrivals brought with them the energy and entrepreneurial impulse that generally attends immigrant waves. Family-oriented, hardworking, and driven to succeed, they’ve greatly benefited the neighborhood. From my vantage, they remind me of my grandfather and his peers. Others arriving were generally more affluent, white, and college educated. It was in the late 90’s that we began to see folks, obviously from outside the neighborhood, walking around and looking at houses. Browsers. Handwritten notes asking if we’d consider selling our home were shoved through our mail slot. It was hard to know how to feel about it. Priced out of more expensive areas or newly arrived in the city, these folks were attracted by the neighborhood’s amenities, housing stock, proximity to the subway, and convenience to Center City. Prices on our own block increased eight- to tenfold between 1996 and today, providing a windfall for some neighbors with an itch to leave but also pretty much making it certain that their children couldn’t buy in the vicinity if they wanted to stay.

By the mid- to late-aughts, swarms of hipsters, ironic deep divers, beer geeks, gourmands, and self-appointed food critics were descending on the neighborhood as the infrastructure to satisfy them all had developed. Bars began offering vast selections of national and local craft and Belgian beers. Even corner bars started carrying a few crafts and a couple of Chimays. The harbinger for all of this, however, was Ristorante Paradiso, the dream of Lynn Rinaldi, a proud product of the neighborhood. Paradiso departed from the familiar Italian-American narrative and bravely introduced Italian regional themes to East Passyunk. Heartened by Lynn’s success, we opened Le Virtú, digging deep into la cucina Abruzzese and proffering dishes that would have been familiar to the grandparents and great grandparents of our neighbors. And, of course, a diverse host of restaurants and other eateries – most of them astonishingly good – followed. It’s now possible to figuratively eat your way across much of the globe and never leave East Passyunk.

We’d imagined Le Virtú as a love letter to Abruzzo, where we’d lived after my first occurrence of Hodgkin’s and where we returned to annually and, perhaps naively, a gift of gratitude to the neighborhood. Our first menus, created by Luciana from Abruzzo, were straight out of tradition, without any “cheffy” interpretation. And still we’d have guests, some of them locals and neighbors, who were baffled by our fare. One guy, seated at the bar and looking over our offerings, his face a map of confusion, remarked: “Not for nothing, but is there anything Italian on this menu?” So, a little (hopefully unpedantic) explanation often proved necessary. Using ingredients from specific local farms, importing rare ingredients from Abruzzo (buying our saffron involved going to the village of Civitaretenga in Abruzzo and knocking on a farmer’s door; we filled suitcases with rare cheeses from organic farms in the region), and trying to proffer quality wines and digestives made our prices above what had been the neighborhood norm. Without doubt, we alienated some locals. And the people most familiar with our dishes, the native-born Italians living in the neighborhood, never went out to eat Italian. The idea of going out and paying for what you could make at home was, to them, obscene. Only ‘merigan did that. But we gradually found our clientele, or they found us. And watching, as has happened many times. family shedding nostalgic tears over a simple bowl of scrippelle ‘mbusse - pecorino-filled crepes in chicken broth – and remembering the grandmothers from Abruzzo, now most likely departed, who used to make it for special occasions…you can’t put a price on that.

The Italian South Philly that persists is deceptively large, especially if you’re just judging by a count of storefronts and businesses. Philly’s population of Italian Americans is still the second largest in the US, after New York’s, and a lot of that’s attributable to South Philly. Most blocks in the old enclave are still partly or majority Italian-American, even if some - not most, but a sizable number - of the newcomers tend to pretend the originals don’t exist. Or maybe just wish that they didn’t. This disrespect is often palpable and felt among the long-time residents. They talk about it. Early on during East Passyunk’s so-called “renaissance,” a new store owner catering to more recent neighborhood arrivals and visitors to the Avenue remarked to a journalist that his block had three Italian eateries but that there was no way that could last. He sounded hopeful. I can’t count the episodes in which, drinking or dining at a local joint or just walking along the street, I’ve heard visitors or newcomers condescendingly discussing the long-time residents, the Italian Americans, like Margaret Mead describing the subjects of some anthropological expedition. They say these things blithely, indifferent to or unaware of the fact that the locals hear them. A professor at a city university once asked me where I lived. When I responded, she grimaced then asked: “How do you like living down there with them?” Again, I don’t look Italian American. I informed her of my background and ended the conversation.        

I won’t whitewash any of my neighborhood’s shortcomings. Except maybe to say that they seem to be painfully evident everywhere in America. We’ve drawn the ire of some of South Philly’s less-accepting citizens for the causes we’ve supported at Le Virtú, the fundraisers for immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. But many, maybe even most of our strongest supporters have also been Italian American and folks from the neighborhood. They’ve shown up when we’ve asked for help. We’re indebted to them. But the easy stereotypes often used to describe Italian South Philly and Italian Americans in general are tired, lazy, and profoundly ironic. They also have a long history. Most Italian Americans can trace their provenance to somewhere in the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the southern realm that lasted until most of the peninsula was unified at bayonet point in 1861. In Italy, southerners were often disparaged, labeled terroni for their connection to the earth and the dark color of their skin. Into the 1970’s, some landlords in northern cities openly refused to rent to southerners. Crackpot theories about their inferiority and tendency toward criminality began in northern Italy in the 19th century and followed them to the U.S. Nativist propaganda and even the editorial sections of papers as reputable as The New York Times attacked their character and lamented their arrival in America. During an earlier, xenophobic freakout in the 1920’s, we changed our immigration laws, in part, to stop the waves from southern Italy breaking on our shores. It’s painful to see how durable and apparently socially acceptable these stereotypes are. Just as it’s painful and shameful when some Italian Americans forget this story and mimic their ancestors’ tormentors.

What the future is for the Italian enclave in South Philly, I can’t say. I’m trying to enjoy as much of it that remains as I can, to savor it. The new immigrant communities, vibrant and essential to the neighborhood’s future as they may be, are understandably insular. And it’s unclear how committed the other newcomers are to the neighborhood, the young families, couples, and affluent professionals making their homes here. Will they stay or, as many do, move on when their kids reach school age? Some have had a real positive impact. Participation in school and neighborhood associations is important and has for sure contributed to the area’s betterment. But those types of organizations aren’t deeply organic. They can and do strengthen a community, but I don’t think that they often create the profound sense of belonging that palpably existed here when we arrived, and that persists among long-time residents. Many of the newcomers turn their eyes from and backs to the street. Their lives occur inside their homes, and they don’t actively participate in their block’s daily social exchanges and rhythms. Is this a suburban mode of being?  I wouldn’t know. Since we opened our restaurant, we are also guilty of often hiding behind our door, preoccupied and occasionally overwhelmed as we are (we’ve nobody but ourselves to blame for this; no one held a gun to our heads and forced us to open a restaurant). It seems clear to me and to Cathy that the originals provide much of the social glue that makes our part of South Philly an actual neighborhood. Their emotional attachment to the place, their pride, their events still inform the place’s identity. Without them, this is just an amorphous cluster of streets and homes, meaningless real estate designations. They provide much of the framework that whatever’s to come will be built on.

And, again, the community is stronger than some reports might indicate. If you’re ever lucky enough to happen upon a serenade, you’ll see and feel how strong. Before a wedding, the bride’s street is blocked off, and her and the groom’s families, as well as neighbors, gather in front of the rowhome.  The groom “serenades” her from the street. There’s music, wine, food, laughter, an epic party. It’s something brought here from the old country. My brother Fred got to participate in one in Abruzzo, in the mountain village of Pacentro. He held the groom’s ladder as he climbed to knock on his bride’s window. Once arrived at the window, the groom, a musician of note but, by his own admission, not much of a singer, had to belt out an appropriate tune while all his friends and half the town looked on. His musician friends then joined in. They’re more to the letter of the law in Abruzzo. In South Philly there’s often a DJ instead. The couple in Pacentro, dear friends of ours who’ve hosted us in their own homes, reluctantly left Abruzzo after their marriage to realize their dreams. They now live happily in our South Philly neighborhood.

Oh, and by the way, Joey made it. He’s okay.

[rock-and-roll-suicidee]

need a place to vent and unpack my life a little.

here goesssss. homeless again. truly living through the worst parts of my life and yearning for new orleans yet again. Just got back from two months on the streets in new orleans and most all parts were dreamy. The drinking, all the fist fights, my friends who are more like family. All the days getting drunk on the river walk. All the nights fighting and screaming on the river walk.

I had been in New orleans for several weeks and had a lover when a close friend and lover suggested we leave and go to savannah. Not the worst idea. Savannah, Georgia was a dream boat. Ran into a bunch of friends. The close friend and lover punched a bouncer in the face for telling me I looked too homeless to come in the bar. Running from the cops is always a good time. I think I loved him even then. We split ways in Savannah. The spirits of New orleans nearly always drag me back to that fucking hell. Back in New orleans in two days time. Happy to see old and new friends. Got in another fight the first night back, but I’ve come to realize I like fighting. It’s primal and reminds me of a good fuck. Met a lovely lady named Aleah. A tortured schizo spirit who is an utter hellion to anyone she doesn’t like. She once told me, when speaking of New orleans, “God doesn’t live here.” And it’s true. God doesn’t live in New Orleans. No, I don’t believe he’s ever walked Canal St or Decatur before. Maybe you think you see him at the beautifu church in Jackson Square with the cathedral. But I pissed in that alley against the church, and I’m tellin ya, God wasn’t there. Though speaking on the deep love I feel for New Orleans, I’ve never been scared in that town. I have a friend on every corner. So much so, when my son’s father came to town, he was chased out of town and threatened everytime he showed his face around me. I must reiterate and perhaps it’s the most important facet of my life, I have good, genuine, strong, insane people who love me and would fight for me on any given day. No matter how I speak of the shit parts of my life, for this I am lucky. Whatever, I mean, I was happy to be back in New orleans. Feeling antsy about the separation of my most recent lover, I turned my eyes to the city and opened up. One day on Decatur, (perhaps the best New Orleans memories) I met a beautiful french man who took to me so sweetly. An addict like myself in his own rightful way. He had that air of french superiority to him that only a man who’s lived in france his whole life can have. We fucked and played and drank and fought everyday, till he had to go back to his wife in France. Beautiful, scandalous memories that I will replay till they’re gone. Life is cruel that way. So many beautiful things that I can’t begin to write it all. However, much has happened since I left New Orleans. Finally told the baby daddy to fuck off. Met up with my lover I split ways with in Savannah. We’ve been having fun traipsing the east. From north carolina, to Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania. We’re in Philly now and I’m unsure if i’ve ever hated a city more. Not that I like most of any cities, but everyone here is already dead. Mere bodies walking around with headphones and faces stuck in phones. Fuckin yankees. I guess I’m in a relationship again, not that I even really want it at all. I just hate to disappoint. Please don’t misunderstand. We’re waiting for some friends to catch up to us here, then we’re heading to Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, then heading directly west to go work. Lord bless my heart. I think I’ll be okay.

[katiebruce]

Year of the Silver Star

It’s taken me a while to sit down and right my annual end-of-the-year post. Normally, I’ve got this post done in the weeks leading up to New Year’s Eve, or, at the very least, the night before. Yet, here we are.

 I think part of it is my fear of letting go of what was such an incredible year for me. I know I’m basically alone in having had a great 2017—that’s okay, I’m usually an outcast anyways—but also a sense that I’ve peaked and will now plateau, if not avalanche, downwards into both my Saturn Return and my thirties. Whatever it may be, I owe it to both one of the best years of my life and one of the strangest starts to a new year I’ve ever had to document it.

 So, here it is.

 I started 2017 doing one of my favorite things: being out of the country. Sure, I was working, and sure, I wasn’t with my most favorite people, or in one of my favorite cities (not to shade Toronto, by any means)—but I had a good time. I had this overall feeling of excitement and change and that air of “anything is possible” that often accompanies the completion of a year--but somehow more than ever before. Something just felt right.

 I knew that starting the year off out of the country would provide ample travel opportunities and I made no hesitation in starting that right away. My best friend and I flew to Philly for a weekend—to see one of our favorite emo bands, mind you—and explored the frigid city in all its historic glory. About a week later, I flew to Vegas for my roommate’s bachelorette party, which, in and of itself, was easily one of the most eventful things that happened last year…

 February came and I turned 28 and celebrated with my girl gang at a library themed, Oscar Wilde bar. We got LIT-erary. I still find that fucking hilarious. We ended the night at our favorite watering hole, The good old Owl and ended up getting called The Spice Girls which was actually such a revelation for us (and even though Nicole wasn’t there, she somehow was the fifth we needed and the universe fucking knew it.)

 About a week or so later, me, Bethany and Lo flew across the fucking pond. We traveled London, Liverpool and Edinburgh for a week and froze our bloody arse’s off. In London, Lauren and I had a most memorable night where we were both kissed by a rose and wound up and a Beyonce bash, complete with face masks of Bey and all. I was catcalled in the most British way possible: “Oi, that’s a big bottom!” and I ended up meeting a guy we referred to as Mr. Grey for the better part of the year. He and I would, uh, well, fuck it. We’d have facetime sex at like, the most awkward hours and tbh it was sexy and made me feel great and I walked a little lighter and enjoyed how silly it was for a while. Of course, it ended a few months in, as these things often do, but I can’t deny the fun I had and I feel like I shouldn’t. Everyone should have sex with a sex monster (yes, that’s what I’m going to refer to him as now) at least once in their life. It was a wild ride.

 Beebs and I got inked in Liverpool on an absolute whim, and I had a sixty-year-old man tell me about the time he saw Bowie on the Ziggy Stardust tour as we listened to Lorde and he forever immortalized my love of The Thin White Duke on my forearm. This is when I really started letting go last year; I’m not very good at being impulsive. I may appear to be, but deep down I have grave anxiety about pretty much anything I do. I’ve just been lucky enough to have people who are willing to tolerate it and help me work past it in my adult life. But something changed in me in Liverpool, that drunken night where I not only decided I would get inked but thought up the concept mere hours before having it forever, and I can say I completely allowed this new girl to inhabit me and take over for the remainder of the year.

 I fell in love with Edinburgh and decided that, should I pursue a Master’s degree in the next few years, I’ll be going to school there. I’ve never felt quite as home as I did there. (I realize I’ve always said that about London, but trust me, if something was ever going to top Lahndo, it must be true love.)

 Me and the girls (all sexed up from chatting with all the foreign boys we did) had a most memorable night when we got home getting drunk at a sex store together and spending a collective $800 or so dollars on toys and lingerie. Self-care, bitches.

 In March, I watched as my roommates committed to a beautiful forever together. It was also my first time as a bridesmaid, and holy cow are weddings a lot of work. I’ve always said I’ll have a tiny wedding, if not just elope, but holy hell the experience from the inside only solidified that in my mind.

 Spring came and went and I grew my hair longer and cut it short again, yearned for warmth and visited my sister in Florida & flew to visit Kris in his newly adopted city of Denver. This is also around the time where I went on a few Tinder dates (Lord, help me) and fell, soul-crushingly head over heels for a guy I met one fleeting day at work…

 I took Acid on a third date which resulted in it also being The Last Date, but it made me see text messages as bubbles and I battled a dragon trying to get money from and ATM and watched a Star Wars for the first time (and last time) and had an evening of bad, trippy sex. Nothing like hallucinogenics to make you realize you are not in sync with another person, lol.

 So it goes.

 I traveled Europe for two weeks with Ellie which was lovely and exhausting. I returned to my beloved Italy, which was huge for me, as I always wanted to go before it had been ten years since the last time I stepped foot in the first foreign country I ever visited. We got drunk in San Marco Square and listened to battling string quartets and fell in love with foreign men we were too afraid to talk to and I was old enough this time around to know not to order a Long Island iced tea from a bartender who barely understood English in the first place…

 We eventually, by some form of absolute witchcraft, caught a flight to the tiny Greek island of Santorini and legit lived in a cave house for five days. We walked all over that tiny island and I let the sea breeze cleanse my skin and my hair and my heart and my mind. We watched the sunset every evening as if it were a spectacle to behold (it was—it always is) and just really let ourselves tell time by nature, and how it made our bodies feel. It was really a humbling experience to be in a place that’s so, so small. Going to Athens (via a ten hour ferry ride, mind you) was a bit of culture shock after being so confined for so long. Being in one of the most Eastern cities in Europe, however, really just made my itching to go to the middle east even more dire.

 I had a rough summer in terms of mental health; I hate summer flying (& the debilitating crush I mentioned above seemingly saved me—for like a week—and then left just as fleetingly as it arrived and left me in a pretty low place. I still dream about the guy regularly; I had two separate one’s last night.)

 I started taking Xanax again. Because, well, life is hard and my roommate has a prescription.

 I got to explore the beautiful, beautiful part of Wyoming that is Yellowstone National Park and got to see the beautiful, beautiful human being my best friend is becoming in the process. For a few days we camped, explored, and just really took in nature—even a death storm that threatened to turn our tent into a boat—it was a beautiful experience and I’m glad Nicole has found a place to call her home surrounding her with such beautiful, expressive people.

 August came and with the promise of September on its heels, I started to feel like myself again. Virgo season always does it to me; it’s my polar opposite and therefore, my most compatible sign. Ellie and I got another round of impulsive tattoos; strawberries—a quote stolen from Shakespeare that really just became a euphemism for our friendship throughout the year. We went to riot fest and I saw New Order and cried and Paramore (for the first time since I was, like, nineteen… and while we’re in a side note, let me just mention how much After Laughter was very much the soundtrack to my year and I’m not ashamed to admit it) and Ellie cried and we just had a very fun few days in the hot Chicago heat.

 I chose to recover from this by getting yet another tattoo; my largest & most intricate to date, so that made for an interesting, but wonderful day. It’s also worth noting that I got it in the south side of Chicago so, like, if I ever go to prison at least I’ve got that going for me.

 I returned to Milwaukee and had a riotous night with my girls where I got hit on by two famous band members and it was like, the stuff dreams are made of. I know it’s silly to assign worth to someone’s fame, but you have someone hit on you who has, like, a million Instagram followers & songs in like fifty different movies and see how it makes you feel & then judge me. This also started my love affair with the lesser famous band member who I’ve now entered into some weird “see you around Chicago” love affair thing for the past few months where we both flirt and ignore each other simultaneously. It’s wild.

 I saw so many bands and cried to so many songs and discovered so many artists and felt all the things.

 Friendsgiving came, and Nicole came, & along with her came The Con X tour. Without getting too into it, that was a huge shifting point for me & 2017 in general. The Con was an album that saved my life both metaphorically & also, like, physically, and to be able to stand outside of the depression that nearly took my life ten years prior and say, loudly, “I am still here and I like my life and sort of like the person I am but I am also trying to become better each and every day and it’s all very much worth it” is beautiful and powerful thing.

 My mom and I spent a wonderful weekend in Vancouver, exploring the cold north and even got to go whale watching, which was, honestly, one of the most breathtaking, awe inspiring experiences I’ve ever taken part in. Nothing will make you feel as small as floating in a yellow zodiac in the middle of the ocean surrounded by six Orcas and a baby (but fucking huge!) humpback whale will. Nature does a good job of reminding us of just how insignificant we are.

 The holidays just passed and I forgot about two ex-lover’s birthdays until days after each had past. I’m a big fan of dates; so this, too, was a huge thing for me. My Saturn Return stressed me out for months, yet finally arrived, subtlety, yet very directly. I assigned all my turmoil the Mercury Retrograde and the moon’s rotation yet also tried to use that bad air as a way to propel myself further into becoming better in some odd way. 

I spent a week at home in Tampa and the past week here in Chicago and I’ve been reflective and passive towards the new year, which is new for me. I celebrated the end of one of my favorite years, Year of the Silver Star, seeing Twin Peaks at one of my favorite venues in the world. I’ve lately adopted such a deep, profound love for Chicago that I can’t say was always there. I’ve always loved it here; don’t get me wrong. But lately I’ve just got this overwhelming sense of pride about living here and the person it’s shaped me to be. I truly live in the greatest city in America; it’s such a quiet, best kept-secret and it’s all fucking mine.

 So, in saying goodbye, I realize I am also going to be mourning the death of a good friend to me—2017—in the process. There’s a certain amount of fear that comes after having such a good year. Can anything else compare? Where will I go from here? What does the future hold for my small, insignificant experience on this planet?

 At least David Bowie can’t die again.

 2018 has had a slow, humble start. I think that’s going to be the theme, though—slow and steady. I’m cautious because I’m aging (twenty-nine in a few weeks. twenty-fucking-nine!) but also because of my fear and understanding of Saturn Return. I was just becoming comfortable with impulsive kb, and am now being faced with a wise, considerate version of myself. I’m really trying to act thoughtfully & with reason.

 I will not invite toxic relationships, old or new, into my life. I will not settle for less than what I what, just because I am afraid to voice what I do want. I will not let anything stop my travel plans—and boy, do I have a lot of them for this year.

 I will move out of my apartment, my home for the last seven years, in four short months. I will turn a new leaf. I will (finally) graduate college. I will likely have bad sex. But, I will also have good sex. Really, really good sex. I can feel it; it’s vaginal intuition. I will visit India and bask in the beauty of the Taj Mahal and dream of a love so wild that someone might dream of building me something so grand in order to express their feelings for me some day. I will visit Australia and New Zealand, Iceland, China and who knows where else. I will continue to learn about myself, slowly, humbly, and try to embrace the woman I am and the one I want to become.

So, 2018, Year of the Stardust, I salute you and your intrinsic ability to control what’s next for me. I know it’s going to be a transitional year; that’s inevitable. But I will do my best to accept your place in my life with open arms and love. I will try every day to better understand my place in this world, and what’s next for me. I will continue to grow up. I will end my twenties with you!

 I eagerly await your lessons and turmoil, & burn sage in beginning you, officially, tonight. (After all, it’s a full moon and that feels more like a fresh start than some mortal-made calendar, anyways.)

Cheers to you, Stardust. May the crumbling of my Silver Star bring only beauty within you.

[ecstasyandwine]

My Baseball Allegiances:

Orioles: They blow rn but their history is cool and I support them generally

Red Sox: Cool history, we Cubs fans historically commiserate with Red Sox fans but right now I am not trying to see the Red Sox win anything

Yankees: I'm a Yankees fan in the sense that I am a baseball fan. You can't have a greater conversation about baseball without talking about the Yankees. To me being staunchly anti-Yankees is almost as boring and trite and insufferable as actually being a terrible Yankees fan

Tampa Bay Rays: Cool weird team

Blue Jays: Damn where'd all the dudes on this team go lol they were stacked and then they were just a fuckin mess. All these young dudes are fun to watch but idk about what's going on with the pitching

Chicago White Sox: Already better and more interesting than the north side team. Growing up in my household, we were Cubs fans first and foremost, but we were to always respect the White Sox and root for them if they were in the playoffs because there was no way the Cubs were ever going to win shit ever

Cleveland Indians: Next step: Officially change name to the Cleveland Tribe

Detroit Tigers: Mindbendingly awful

KC Royals: My favorite shitty team

Twins: Cool weird team

Astros: They are making me seasick and it's getting harder to respect them or root for them

Angels: Both the best and worst team to watch

Athletics: Cool weird team, love their shitty ballpark

Mariners: I'm sorry, I can't anymore. No playoffs for twenty years? I'll start caring when they can get back into the playoffs. I'm so upset that Felix Hernandez will retire without a postseason appearance, it is a stain on the sport of baseball

Rangers: Love them lol but they are such a mess

Braves: NL East team of choice. I'm close to a lot of people with Georgia ties. I always support Georgia and Atlanta stuff

Marlins: 😂

Mets: Who?

Phillies: Get real

Nationals: ...I enjoyed being a casual Nats fan for the entire time I lived in DC. So in a way, I support. During that time, they were always a suuuuuper super frustrating team. I've gotta be honest and say that I really never thought they were gonna be able to pull off a WS until after a full rebuild, so I mean I'm levelling here, I never really had faith. I like them a lot more now post Harper

Cubs: Hometown team, team of choice, ultimate allegiance for better or worse. I actually cannot stand many if not most Cubs fans. Such a grand lack of perspective from a hundred and eight years in an isolation tank of utter failure. To be fair, most Cubs fans do not like me or understand my views either

Reds: My dad grew up in Ohio as a Reds fan during the Big Red Machine era so there's that connection. Can't say I really have too much sentimentality for either Ohio team but I enjoy watching Ohio baseball well enough, pro or otherwise

Brewers: Love them, people around here are mad into Wisconsin sports. Love their ballpark

Pirates: Cool team, respect, history, Tough going lately but I support

Cardinals: Yes, I am both a Cubs fan and a Cardinals fan. I have too much of an STL connection to not support and be interested in the Cardinals. Tell most any baseball fan that I am into both the Cubs and the Cardinals, and they will just shrug and say Well I don't know what the fuck this guy's problem is. People just don't accept it. Good thing I don't have to explain shit to haters

Diamondbacks: Cool weird team

Rockies: Lol this shit is getting pretty grim

Dodgers: Always used to love them until they eliminated the Cubs at Wrigley and it was super ugly and they were grandstanding and desecrating the sacred grounds of Wrigley. At that moment it was like a switch went off in my head and I immediately placed the Based Curse on them and have resented them fully ever since. It has truly been my pleasure to see them get eliminated in spectacular fashion for the last three seasons

Padres: Cool weird team

Giants: Whatever Haven't cared in a while. No more rings for these guys for 30 years. Love Timmy Lincecum

[onebeforeidie]

Toronto Raptors Long Road to the NBA Finals

Next year will be the 25th year in Toronto Raptors franchise history. It’s been a very interesting two and a half decades, from adopting a dinosaur and playing in the cavernous Skydome, to having NBA star after NBA star reject the team and refuse to report or demand a trade, to the highs of the Vinsanity era, followed by more years of darkness and incompetence.

But for the sake of brevity, let’s attempt to tell the story of how the Raptors got where they are now, and begin where this run truly began. 

PROLOGUE (2011-2012)

It’s the 2011 off-season. The Raptors just won 22 games and are now years removed from the “successful” first round exits of 2007 (New Jersey) and 2008 (Orlando). After several attempts by GM Bryan Colangelo to find the right combination of players to make the playoffs consistently in the East, the team now appears fully lost with the only real option left to scorch earth rebuild. The previous summer, Chris Bosh moved on to Miami, only to lose to the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals. After which, their assistant coach Dwayne Casey, praised for his defensive schemes on the big 3, becomes available and the Raps bring him in as head coach to start a new program built on fundamentals and pounding the rock. 

It’s the lockout year, and the Raps suck again finishing 23-43, lacking any kind of distinct identity despite Casey’s efforts. Colagelo makes a full court press to bring in former MVP and Canadian hero Steve Nash to mentor and lead the group on the hardwood. After an intense courtship, we ultimately whiff and Nash spurns his home country, deciding he is better off playing for the Lakers. We also make a brief play for current Raptors benchwarmer Jeremy Lin (infamous for his Linsanity run with the Knicks), but eventually settle for Kyle Lowry as the man to run their offense. Colangelo traded a protected first round pick and Gary Forbes to Houston for the Philly Bulldog  (who eventually flip that pick to OKC for James Harden - ironic considering that we previously declined a version of that trade as OKC wanted the man we drafted with the 5th overall pick Jonas Valanciunas, Jose Calderon, and Terrance Ross, but Colangelo balked). 

Colangelo eventually trades Calderon and Ed Davis to Memphis for Rudy Gay and Hamed Haddadi instead (Pistons were involved as a third team) midway through the 2012-13 season, which finally gave us a player who could take a late 4th quarter shot for the first time in a long time, but Gay’s lack of efficiency couldn’t take them over the hump and they finished 34-48 which forced the teams hand. 

The Raptors remove Colangelo as GM that offseason, and brought in Nuggets GM Masai Ujiri, who Colangelo had hired years earlier as his director of global scouting in 2007, and then promoted to assistant GM in 2008. The plan was for Colangelo to remain on, but he quickly stepped down as he became aware this would be Ujiri’s team moving forward. It should be noted, Masai brought with him, from the NBA league office, current Raptors GM Bobby Webster who he groomed to be his ultimate successor once he eventually assumed the President’s role. 

And thus, with Ujiri and the only remaining current Raptor from that era, Kyle Lowry, the We The North Era begins.

CHAPTER 1 (2013-14) - An Unlikely Beginning 

Ujiri’s first order of business is to fleece the New York Knicks, flipping maligned Raptor and prized Colangelo possession Andrea Bargnani for a first round pick, and two seconds (also Steve Novak, Quentin Richardson, and Marcus Camby, the latter two would never suit up for the Raps as it was simply a salary dump). For more on the Bargs trade tree read up here: https://www.sportsnet.ca/basketball/nba/toronto-raptors-trade-masai-ujiri-andrea-bargnani-jakob-poeltl/

Masai also decides to keep his inherited coach, feeling he had not gotten a proper shake with a competitive group. 

However the team struggles early, and Masai is prompted to trade Rudy Gay, Quincy Acy and Aaron Gray to Sacramento for Grevious Vasquez, Patrick Patterson, Chuck Hayes, and John Salmons. This appears to be the true beginning of another earth scorching, as Andrew Wiggins was the prize in that year’s draft and Raptor fans were more than happy to tank for a shot at him. 

Masai is also back in talks with the Knicks about Kyle Lowry, and essentially had a deal in place to move him there for another first round pick, Iman Shumpert and Metta World Peace. But still sore from the Bargs debacle, New York pulls out of the deal at the last minute. 

Which suited the Raptors just fine, who since the Gay trade in December had turned things around and pulled together playing team basketball. They went on on a major run with DeMar leading the team. He went to All-Star weekend, and kept it rolling in the second half with the team ending up winning a franchise high 48 games and the division. 

They draw the veteran laiden Brooklyn Nets, lead by Kevin Garnett & Paul Pierce, and fight them tooth and nail to a 7th game. The Raptors fall short in the final seconds, but it was extremely memorable run for the fans who expected nothing of the sort that season and who immediately took to the We The North campaign. Jurassic Park got it’s life here and was made famous by Masai’s “FUCK BROOKLYN” comments to pump up the crowd prior to Game 1. 

Outgoing Raptors: Julyan Stone, Nando De Colo, Austin Daye, Dwight Buycks, DJ Augustin

Chapter 2 (2014-15) - The Sophmore Slump

It’s the Raptors 20th Anniversary year and Masai is tasked with making his first post playoff adjustments. He trades John Salmons to Atlanta for Lou Williams and Bebe. The team would start on fire, 24-8 out of the gate and go on to win another division and finish with another franchise high 49 wins. Williams would go on to to win 6th man of the year. 

Sadly they get destroyed in the playoffs with both Lowry and DeRozan struggling. The Wizards swept the Raptors 4-0, and nemesis Paul Piece, now having moved on to Washington, gets the last laugh once again. 

Outgoing Raptors:  Landry Fields, Tyler Hansborough, Chuck Hayes, Amir Johnson, Grevious Vasquez, Lou Williams, Greg Steimsma.

Chapter 3 (2015-16) - The Breakthrough

Masai shakes things up again this time refocusing on defense, trading Grevious Vasquez for a 2nd round pick that would be used on now second longest tenured Raptor Norman Powell, and a 1st round pick that would eventually be used to acquire Serge Ibaka the following year. He also signs DeMarre Caroll to a big free agent contract, and brings home Toronto boy Corey Joseph to be the backup point guard. He also signs veteran Luis Scola. 

The moves once again pay off, as Toronto wins a monumental 56 games and their third straight division title. The city also hosts the All-Star game for the first time, which both Lowry and DeRozan represent. The dunk competition is arguably the most memorable one since Vince broke the wheel in 2000, with Aaron Gordon and Zach Levine facing off in an insane finals (which Levine won by a hair). 

The Raps win their first playoff series since beating the Knicks in 2001 (and second all time), barely creeping by Paul George and the Indiana Pacers in 7 games. They would take another 7 games to beat Dwayne Wade and Miami in the second round, going the farthest they’ve ever gone in the playoffs, before bowing out to LeBron and the Cavs in 6 in the eastern final, which ended on home court with the fans chanting in support much to Lebron’s shock and awe. The Cavs would go on to comeback and upset the Warriors in a memorable NBA Finals. 

Outgoing Raptors:  Anthony Bennett, Bismack Biyombo, James Johnson, Jason Thompson, Luis Scola

Chapter 4 (2016-17) - The Step Back

The Raptors make a huge financial commitment to DeMar DeRozan in the summer, signing him to a max contract after talk he may go home to join the Lakers. The Raps win 51 games, but fail to continue their streak of division titles with the rising Boston Celtics surging ahead of them. Masai makes two big deadline deals for Ibaka and big body PJ Tucker, but they are not enough as they slog past a young Milwaukee Bucks team 4-2 in the first round, but proceed to get swept by LeBron and the Cavs in the 2nd.

Outgoing Raptors:  DeMarre Caroll, Jared Sullinger, Corey Joseph, Patrick Patterson, Terrance Ross, PJ Tucker

Chapter 5 (2017-18) - The Breaking Point

Masai looks to make significant changes to the way the team plays basketball on both offence and defense in an effort to keep up with the changing NBA landscape, despite bringing back Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka on big short term deals. They pay Brooklyn a first round pick to take the oft-injured Caroll of their hands, send Corey Joseph to Indiana, and look to get younger, more athletic, and move the ball. CJ Miles is brought in to help address three point shooting. Coach Casey succeeds impressively in this overhaul, wins 59 games, the division, finished with the best record in the East, and won Coach of the Year. DeMar has an impressive campaign as well, including dropping a franchise high 52 against in the Bucks on New Year’s day. But it’s all for not, as they get some slight revenge on the Washinton Wizards beating them 4-2 in the first round, but losing to LeBron and the Cavs for a third straight season, once again getting swept in the second round. 

Masai wrings his hands and is forced to make some impossible choices. He fires the reigning coach of the year, ultimately determining a change was necessary to get to the next level. He then moves face of the franchise DeMar, for one year of Kawhi and Danny Green, a polarizing trade that put the entire league on notice. 

Masai would also finally eat crow and move on from his “Brazillian KD” draft pick who was famously two years away from being two years away. 

Outgoing Raptors:  DeMar Derozan, Jakub Poetl, Nigel Hayes, Lucas Nogiera, Alfonso Mckinnie, Bruno Caboclo. 

Chapter 6 (2018-19) - The Promised Land

Nick Nurse is promoted to head coach in somewhat of an awkward situation, and Kawhi has his load managed by the team to keep him fresh for the playoffs. Masai makes another tough deadline deal, this time sending fan favorite Jonas Valancuinas, Delon Wright, and CJ Miles to Memphis for Marc Gasol. The team isn’t as good as last year as due to injuries was rarely together all at the same time, but still wins 58 games, the division, and finished 2nd in the East. They also sign guards Jodie Meeks and Jeremy Lin to fill out the bench. 

They pull together in the playoffs on the back of a dominant Kawhi Leonard who by now had blossomed into everything they hoped he would be as an injured superstar when they acquired him nearly a year ago, quickly dispensing with Orlando 4-1 before beating Philly in 7 games in the second round, 18 years after Vince missed that final shot. This time the narrative ends with Kawhi hitting his now famous four time bouncing buzzer beater, and the Raps move to one seed Milwaukee in the eastern final. After falling down 2-0, they would storm back to win the next 4, giving the team their first ever NBA Finals birth against the Golden State Warriors. 

Outgoing Raptors:  Jonas Valancuinas, Delon Wright, CJ Miles, Greg Monroe, Malachi Richardson, Lorenzo Brown

The series ahead will be hard fought one against an all-time juggernaut team that has been to four straight finals, and won three of them. Lead by, at the time, an eight year old kid that Raptors fan watched warm up and shoot pre-game threes during the Vince era. Whatever happens, it will be squarely on the backs of two people. Sure it will take Kawhi being an absolute monster and he will play the hero role should they win and rightfully so, but as the man himself said, this team was not built in one year.  So I look to Masai Ujiri, who very clearly orchestrated this patiently and cold bloodedly, and Kyle Lowry, the only Raptor to have been through it all with him. Masai arrived and proceeded to make the playoffs 6 straight years after the Raptors only made it 5 times in the previous 18 seasons. He kept on a coach he did not hire for as long as he could and reaped the rewards for doing so, and still made the hard decision when he had to. He drafted and signed players like Pascal Siakam, Fred Van Vleet, Norman Powell, and OG and did so by managing to bring in the Raptors 905 (who also won a championship in his time as well). He also kept a point guard he almost traded, and never looked back. Lowry rewarded him with 5 division titles in 6 years, averaged 53.5 wins a year, made the all star team 5 times, was an all NBA player in 2016, and won gold with Team USA basketball that same year. Kyle and Masai’s relationship took a hit after the trade of his best friend (despite paying him 100 million the year before) but rest assured, should the Raptors do the unthinkable and win this series, they will be hugging on the floor and it will be a truly glorious moment. 

Let’s hope they find a way. 

2019 Raptors Playoff Roster: Kyle Lowry, Danny Green, Kawhi Leonard, Pascal Siakam, Marc Gasol, Serge Ibaka, Fred Vanvleet, Norm Powell, OG Anunoby, Patrick McCaw, Jeremy Lin, Jodie Meeks, Jordan Loyd, Malcom Miller, Chris Boucher, and Eric Moreland.  

#WETHENORTH

[vesselblock65-blog]

M.I.A.’s first show and the birth of the mash-up: Remembering Hollertronix, where mixtapes and mosh pits ruled

A show at North Philly’s Warehouse on Watts this weekend turns the clock back to the early 2000s in homage to one of the most legendary parties in Philadelphia history.

“Red Bull Presents: Hollerboard Redux” is a celebratory throwback to Hollertronix, the wild, sweaty, sonically innovative recurring party started in 2002 by DJ Lowbudget (aka Michael McGuire) and Diplo (Wesley Pentz). Friday night’s show features appearances by some of the key players in the scene — including Lowbudget, Cosmo Baker, Nick Catchdubs, Dirty South Joe, and Spank Rock (in his final performance under that stage name).

What’s to commemorate? After starting out as a strictly local affair, Hollertronix became a hot topic on the infamous online “Hollerboard” message boards and gained a cult following. It hosted one of M.I.A’s first shows. In 2003, the New York Times named the Hollertronix mixtape Never Scared one of the best albums of the year, calling it “a near-perfect party mix.”

Hollertronix was a laboratory that allowed Wes and Mike to popularize lesser-known musical genres (think Baltimore club) and experiment with mashing up musical styles in a way that’s now commonplace, but was then pioneering. It was a way to channel crate-digger geekiness and creativity with pure, technically-brilliant party rock. It was shaped by Philadelphia’s rich pre-Serato DJing history and an influx of New York folks fleeing Giuliani-era enforcement of cabaret laws. The dance floor featured a mélange of kids, black and white, gay and straight, hailing everywhere from Baltimore to Connecticut.

The result was something the Philly nightlife scene had never seen before — and has really never seen since.

Courtesy Christopher Ross

Michael McGuire aka DJ Lowbudget (DJ and musician): Me and Wes kept bumping into each other, and eventually we decided to do a party at this place called the Ukrainian Club, the Ukie. We wanted to play down south music, ‘80s stuff, and electro. The first Hollertronix party was actually my birthday.

Wesley Pentz aka. Diplo (DJ and producer): I wanted to throw a party where I could play all kinds of hip-hop. The first Hollertronix, the “Get Crunk Now” party, was a lot of 80s stuff. Now, if you heard about this…you’d just be like, who gives a fuck, that’s so redundant. But back then those scenes were so different.

McGuire: The first party was September 2002. We really didn’t do much promotion at all. It was mostly word of mouth. We had about a 150 people come, but it was good, and the word of mouth afterward was even better.

Pentz: In Philly, social clubs had a special license to stay open an extra hour. The Ukrainian Club was dingy and old, but it was right by my house. Also, the parties we were doing were kind of illegal, but we were so far up the northside of Philadelphia that the police weren’t bothering us. I became good friends with the owners. They thought I was actually Ukrainian. I’d go to their meetings sometimes.

Rose Luardo (performance artist, comedian, musician): It looked like an old man’s basement: cheap, yellow, wood paneling, long cafeteria tables. It looked like there was a big Polish wedding the day before and the day after.

Nick Barat aka Nick Catchdubs (Fool’s Gold Records co-founder and DJ): It was all musty and dank. There was a tiny bar in the back, like in a cafeteria, where the lunch lady stands and takes your money. But instead, it was a weird Ukrainian lady who would take your money and then give you a giant bottle of Obolon beer.

Jayson Musson (artist): All the artwork on the walls was Ukrainian history, or Ukrainian people or Ukrainian national messages. By default, everyone was an outsider. It’s not your space, no matter who you are. So that put everyone on a level ground.

McGuire: Part of what gave us confidence was the alcohol was cheap and it stayed open later than 2 a.m. If you started playing something people didn’t like, they weren’t going to leave and go to the next bar, because it was in this weird location. So there was more freedom to be creative. I consider the actual setting of the party just as much a part of the success as our own creative input.

Luardo: People would say, “I went to a really great dance party and had the most incredible time.” And it grew and grew. You just knew you were going to have a balls-to-the-wall time.

McGuire: Social networking was blowing up at the same time. Friendster was just developing. There were these weird local Philly message boards. Everyone would get on there and it was all this Philly drama. People would have all-out beefs. It was a great promotional device. I remember [The Philadelphia] City Paper emailing me, saying, hey, we heard you’re doing this party, we want to list it. I never returned their call. If you had to read City Paper to find out about it, we didn’t want you there.

Courtesy Christopher Ross

Cosmo Baker (DJ and producer): Philadelphia was really the home of the DJ. Cash Money and Jazzy Jeff were two DJs who, in the ‘80s, were the pinnacle of what it meant to be a DJ. We’ve always been a working class city. It’s a very tough city. Nobody can tell us what to do. Everyone’s growing up in a city that’s not really giving you that much. So when it comes time to blow off some steam, they really know how to do it, how to let loose.

Barat: The party could only have existed in Philadelphia. It couldn’t have existed in New York. New York was shitty because of Giuliani, and more importantly, 9/11 had happened and everybody was moving out. It was just sort of dead. You had really expensive rap-video-style, bottle-service club parties, and then you had beard-stroking, my-record’s-more-obscure disco parties that weren’t really for dancing. There were two total extremes.

Joey Massarueh aka Dirty South Joe (DJ and producer): In the summer of 1999, the cabaret laws were put into effect. It was a systematic thing: one by one, at all your favorite little [Lower East Side] spots that held 150 people, there were tables on the dance floor. Giuliani had this major push to clean the streets. New York really felt like a police state. Cops on every corner and halfway down each block. It was like, ok, here we are this vast metropolis, the greatest city on Earth, and you can’t fucking dance.

Baker: I decided, alright, I’m going to move back to Philadelphia. I’m not saying that Giuliani is responsible for the success of Wes and Mike, but a butterfly flaps its wings, and a wave crashes on the other side of the world, right?

Massarueh: There was definitely something special happening in Philly. I remember it being so much more “no bullshit” than any other place I’d ever been. There’s no hustle you’re going to get over here. There’s just too many ways that people are going to shoot it down or see through it. It’s a tough place to learn how to DJ, but you go to other places and you realize you’ve been trained. There’s generation after generation of families that are DJs in Philly. Kids whose dads taught it to them. It’s serious. It has a very blue collar basis here, and part of that is a foundation in classic party-rocking.

Courtesy Christopher Ross

McGuire: At Hollertronix, people would start coming in early and head immediately for the dance floor. No “Let me get a drink first, let me wait till they start playing music I like.” Just right to the dance floor. As a DJ, this is great, I can play whatever I want. They’re not being picky, they’re ready to party.

Naeem Juwan aka Spank Rock (rapper): I would be traditionally the first person on the dance floor. Me and my friends would walk in and start dancing. We’d be like the first five people on the floor — dancing relentlessly, all night. I loved dancing with people that didn’t know how to dance well.

Luardo: The combination of Wes and Mike was phenomenal. They had such different sensibilities. You want to talk about a mash-up—two guys with different music tastes, bringing music and people together.

McGuire: Wes was more out there, really wanting to push the envelope. I was more geared towards rocking the crowd. If it was just me, the party might not have been interesting enough. If it was just him, it might have been too weird, might have alienated people. Together, it was a great balance.

Barat: It’s easier for Wes to be the weirdo and Mike to be the voice of rap reason, but the reality of it was, they both had really extensive taste and both had as much vested interest in pop records and other stuff. Mike definitely brought a little more of the working DJ sense, because he had a lot more experience with it. And he scratched better.

Massarueh: The one thing Mike and Wes would both tell you is, there was a very direct relation going on between the record store Armand’s and the music that was played at Hollertronix.

Baker: Armand’s was the definitive record store in Philadelphia for years. It had everything. It became a ritual — you’d go down to Armand’s once or twice a week. It kind of gave DJs a sense of community — it’s how I met Dirty South Joe. You’d spend hours on end there, listening to records, digesting records, being around other DJs and seeing how they reacted to records. But there was also a sense of competition. You’d make sure that you got there at the right time, so that if there’s only three copies of a hot new record, you were going to be one of the three guys that got it.

Barat: This was DJing before Serato came out — Serato is a software that basically lets you DJ off your laptop. Which, for a working DJ, is a godsend, because you don’t have to lug records everywhere. But it did change the craft and approach. Anybody who can download music and copy it to their hard drive can just get out there and start doing it. But when Hollertronix stuff was going on, if Wes and Mike wanted to play a weird record, they’d really have to seek it out.

McGuire: This was not only before Serato, but also laptops and even CDs. Just two turntables, man. We were doing this with just turntables and a mixer and we had a little sampler for sound effects. People can’t believe we did that with just two turntables.

Massarueh: DJing pre-Serato didn’t just require a lot more skill, it required a lot more dedication from every aspect of your life. There were certain days you had to set aside each week to go get new weapons. You had to go clean and load your gun with new shit. If the labels were too slow, you’d get the kill cuts and bootlegs. You’d take a cab or drive anywhere from four to eight crates to a gig and pack them up at the end of the night. Everywhere you went, you kept them behind you in the booth. You were only as good as the records you had.

Barat: Wes and Mike would take these dollar-bin records from Armand’s and sort of build a context around them. They would play a Trick Daddy record and realize it’s the same tempo as this new Metro Area disco song.

Pentz: Lowbudget was the first to actually go down to Baltimore to pick up the records. We’d buy mixtapes — they worked so well for us.

Baker: It goes back to the vision they had, of throwing all these things together and creating a perfect blend. They weren’t the first guys to mix things half-time and they weren’t the first guys to play Baltimore club or Southern rap or Joy Division records, but they were playing all of them together. On paper, it didn’t make sense. But within the confines of the party, it made perfect sense.

Musson: Baltimore is played around the world because of Hollertronix. It’s in the music of Nick and Naeem, and more DJs in general drop Baltimore shit now. And that’s because of Hollertronix. They didn’t make the wheel, but they were definitely like, yo, there’s this wheel over here.

Juwan: Before, you had these very specific music scenes that had all these fucking rules. Rock sounded like rock, punk sounded like punk, and hip-hop sounded like hip-hop. But when you had everyone mixing together, all these different people with different musical backgrounds together and dancing at that party, it inspired everybody.

Roxy Summers aka Roxy Cottontail (party promoter and DJ): Fixed-gear guys next to tall-T guys next to regular South Philly dudes.

Musson: You’d have your indie kids. It was this kind of post-electro period. Racially, I guess it was really solidly diverse. You had white people, black people — it was just “the kids.”

Luardo: I really felt like, it doesn’t matter who you are in this city: if you are straight edge, if you are punk rock from punk rock, if you are a 90-year-old hippie, if you’re a high-school kid — if you show up to this party, you are down for whatever.

Courtesy Christopher Ross

Massarueh: By the end of the night, that’s when it would get really crunk — head busting, people jumping off the stage. Me and Jayson and Mike had an unofficial group called the Philadelphia Crunk Lords. Everybody knew there was eventually going to be a mosh pit and we were all going to playfully beat each others’ asses and try not to slip on all the beer on the floor.

Musson: They’d play shit to incite mosh pit. The mosh pit was like a boardroom meeting of faces. It was a duty. I felt like if I wasn’t there, I was letting someone down.

Luardo: It was a lot of Sodom and Gomorrah. Crazy shit happened all the time.

McGuire: You’re not going to leave this party looking good. You can get as dolled up as you want, but when you leave you’re going to be nasty and you’re not going to be dolled up anymore. You’re going to break a sweat here.

Luardo: I know that I would crowd surf, I know that I would jump on top of people, I did things like that and everybody else did too. It was that kind of abandon.

McGuire: Our Halloween parties kind of became a thing. I remember the first one, just seeing so many crazy costumes. Jesus and Bin Laden dancing together. Dudes dancing in their underwear. Just people acting nuts.

Barat: M.I.A.’s “Galang” had come out on this little record company called Showbiz in the UK. Wes had found that 12-inch, sought her out, and they started working on stuff together. She signed, got her record deal, came to Philly, and made a mixtape. One of her earliest performances was at Hollertronix on Halloween.

Pentz: That was the first time M.I.A. had ever done a show. She’d done like a little Fader show in a parking lot but this was the first show after that. She was super nervous.

Juwan: By the time that big Halloween party happened, Hollertronix had really made a name for itself. It was big enough that they could get Bun B to come out. I was going on for Plastic Little, so I was fucking stoked.

Massarueh: Halloween was Naeem’s debut and M.I.A.’s debut. She was just getting her whole performing thing together. And friggin Bunn B was there.

Courtesy Christopher Ross

Barat: They started getting all this attention when The New York Times said that the mix CD was one of the best records of the year — not just [best] mixtapes, but actual records. It became this phenomenon, and got really, really big, up to the point that it wasn’t sustainable anymore.

Summers: I remember Never Scared was in The New York Times as one of the best albums. It wasn’t even an album. I was like, huh? How could a mixtape get best album? But that just goes to show the power of the music they were playing.

Massarueh: They really changed idea of touring DJs. At the time, you had three or four dudes in the world that DJed rap on tour — Jazzy Jeff, Stretch Armstrong, Cash Money, early 2000s guys like that. Wes and Mike opened it up to more of a get-in-a-van, punk rock kind of thing. They took that party to different cities, starting with New York.

Barat: They wanted to do bigger things, move on to bigger challenges. M.I.A. happened, Wes’s thing as a DJ and producer happened. You couldn’t go back again.

Summers: Those times will never be replicated. And you know, when you’re in them, you don’t realize that. You just think they’re going to go on forever.

Barat: When the party stopped, it was almost like you didn’t realize it. It wasn’t like they played a last show and were like, alright guys, it’s done. They just didn’t do another one. I liked that it was left open-ended like that.

Luardo: Whenever I have a really fun time, I’m like, it feels like Hollertronix. It created a standard. The people I met there, we’re not really finding any more places that are what that party was. I don’t think there should be and I don’t think there can be. And I don’t think Wes and Mike knew it was going to be that amazing. When we look at all the lines, and trace it all back, it’s almost coincidental, random. Like when someone knocked a little bit of salt into the chocolate chip cookies and were like, oh my god, they’re so good. I’m nostalgic just talking about it. It was so good!

Source: https://billypenn.com/2018/09/28/m-i-a-s-first-show-and-the-birth-of-the-mash-up-remembering-hollertronix-where-mixtapes-and-mosh-pits-ruled/

[13thpythagoras]

My hometown Portland, Oregon was named the “greenest” city in America and it doesn’t surprise me. Portland’s commitment to sustainability is a long tradition in the city, which has struggled in many areas and showed how billion-dollar obstacles can be overcome by good design and engineering. Having worked in the Portland City Club, a think tank there, it was interesting to absorb the wisdom, conversations, and study recommendations folks had for me.

Other cities in the running were cities where I’ve also lived in: Seattle and San Francisco. I could write a book expounding on comparing and contrasting these three above cities. Suffice it to say, they are all fascinating and unique, and I could write a series of posts about them (should I??).

The other cities in the running (for greenest city in the US) include (well, a city on the US border) Vancouver BC, as well as New York, Miami and a place I’ve yet to visit but need to, Honolulu.

Suffice it to say, these cities are all incredibly reliant on the automobile for transit- this is a huge “all-in” bet on the ability to make cars be super-sustainable, like the Tesla Motors business model.

It’s like folks want their DNA to survive into the future, but they don’t really want their DNA to survive into the future, because they want to have kids, but then they hate on Elon Musk or the Tesla Motors (sustainable auto) mindset, and then they buy into the business-as-usual auto industry in today’s USA, thus they want to pollute the environment and ensure environmental catastrophe and death for all their grandkids’ grandkids.

Tangent: The auto is not necessary for a city, as all the auto does is increase the radius of area a person can commute or is expected to go to buy or sell or commune with others. If and when a city is designed such that by walking (such as a university campus) a person can commute, the auto would be functionally obsoleted by simply good urban planning, and could exist only as a novelty racing machine. As such, the car, van, or SUV, is simply just chosen by the US consumer like steak off a menu- not something that’s needed, just something that’s wanted.

Seattle compares to Portland like Los Angeles compares to San Francisco - Seattle (and L.A.) are more spread out, the roads are bigger and wider, traffic goes much faster, and it’s completely about the highway in getting around. While Portland and the Bay Area do have their heavy reliance on the Eisenhower-era highway system, the west coast’s most dramatic bridges and electric train systems can be found in San Francisco and Portland (as well as tiny one-way road-systems, which allow for old-world style automobile-pedestrian interaction where jay-walking is commonplace and safe, rather than truly taboo and mortally dangerous).

There really are no more walkable and livable areas than the inner East Bay Area and inner east Portland, Oregon. If you’re off your karma game, you may get mugged in one of these areas- but if you’re power-walking and know your shit, no one will fuck with you and you can live a great life. I’ve had friends get guns pulled on them in elevators in Oakland, I’ve had friends get mugged, I’ve seen friends get their phone stolen and I’m like “Dude, should I chase him for you??” “Nah breh, just leave it, whatever...” but I’ve never been the victim of a direct crime. Why? Because I look like a fucking MMA fighter with 3% body fat, an 8-pack, and a crazy long jab reach. There was once a random dude who kept trying to start shit, and damn if I would have pile-drived him in the crosswalk, but I didn’t want to paralyze a man in front of my date that night, so I just shouted off this harasser who repeatedly accosted and tried to physically obstruct and separate my date and myself. It actually ruined the date, and it’s a real finesse play to try to deal with being harassed by a stranger while out in San Francisco on a first date. Anyway:

The trains (BART/Caltrain and MAX, respectively) allow train access for a significant (more than half) proportion of the city population within a half hour’s walk to a station. Only New York compares (yet New York has its own problems- primarily the Roosevelt Freeway choking the city’s energy like a serial killer - eliminating any and all waterfront access a lá Croatia-Bosnia).

We all know electric rails were the most common method of transit in the United States around the 1920s, and after the takeover by the oil industry, Portland and San Francisco represent some of the most developed electric intra-city metro-trains in the US, with only Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC in comparison (Chicago with an honorable mention for functionality, but the crime...even the panhandlers in Chicago will offer to walk to an ATM with you if you say you don’t have cash on you- Chicago and New York are some of the most aggressive cities in the world).

The only problem with Chicago, New York, Boston, Philly and the DC area are that the electricity is completely not sustainable- it’s all nuclear, natural gas, coal, and oil-based.

In the west, cities run half hydroelectric (or 95% hydroelectric in Seattle’s case). Yet hydroelectric dams destroy ecosystems in different ways, and are truly damaging to the environment, in ways that can be avoided by solar, wind, and dynamic tidal.  

Solar and wind energy are growing in all of the above states as well, but California leads solar by an arm and a leg. Texas leads wind energy, yet Texas’ roads are some of the most highway-dependent in the world. Look up urban sprawl in the dictionary and you’ll see maps of Houston, Texas, which still is one of the most diverse cities in North America.

Overall, I concur that Portland is the greenest, most well-designed city in the United States, outside of Honolulu- who wants to sponsor me visiting there? LOL