Wash...Rinse...DO NOT REPEAT.

I�ve seen some crazy shit in my day. Although only walking this earth for almost 24 years I�ve stumbled along some crazy things. Whether they be in movies, in real life or otherwise. Nothing could have prepared me for the onslaught of nastiness that is Philadelphia. I�ve even been out in Philadelphia before. Now, I understand that I probably should have done more consulting on where to go and what nights were good at which locations. Since I didn�t, we had to go with what I jotted down from the internet the week before.

Five of us packed into the silver bullet, aka, my car. Dr. C, Marcus, Gary, Reggie, and I were on 95 north ready to take on the new city. Before leaving Maryland we needed something to eat. Our choice was to go to the diner in College Park, MD near where I went to school. In the DELMARVA (Deleware/Maryland/Virginia) region, the cicadas have been going insane. We step out of the car and we heard them...and then noticed them flying around...then my friend Reggie realized there was one flying around him. Insert nelly queen screaming here.,.and so the trip began.

Driving into the city we went to the hotel where we were told check in doesn�t start for another two hours. We go to the Convention Center so certain members of the group can get their comic book obsession on. Gary and I took to finding as many mullets as possible. There was a man in a spider man costume with his gut hanging out. Priceless.

On the walk to the center we got the first taste of what kind of city Philadelphia was. There was a car that had been run into a pole and left in the street/wrapped around the pole. No one was around it and the cops weren�t doing a damn thing. That car was there when we left the next day in the same spot. Further down the street another car had more of a tire problem since one of their tires had been completely stripped off the silver/metal thingy that the tires are attached too/wrapped around.

Pictures were taken of both cars and will be posted soon.

The convention was fine and we went out that night to Woody�s which was actually not that bad of a time and Reggie and I managed to strut/work the dance floor for awhile before other folks decided they wanted in on our party. There was another club I heard of to go to call Shampoo, which isn�t in the greatest part of town. We all pile into a cab, give them the address and then the taxi driver asked us how to get there. There are certain things cab drivers should know...one of them is fucking knowing how to get places. We roll up to the club, walk in and realize that not only is it some kind of straight night, the bouncer thought I was a performer (what kind I don�t know) and when we walked onto the main floor there was some lesbian getting a tattoo. Cut to us racing from the club and hailing a cab to go back to Woody�s. Shampoo: wash, rinse...DO NOT REPEAT.

Afterwards we were hungry and learned that not only is Philly home to bums that walk in the center lane of a street along with the cars, but they also shut everything down around 1. We went to an all night diner but I guess we were looking too fabulous because they wouldn�t serve us. After sitting at the booth for 15 minutes or so a lady walked by and asked us if we wanted to see menus. No bitch, we just want to hang out.

The hotel room had no yellow pages, but were nice enough to give us two copies of the white pages. Room service stopped at 1 and the Wendy�s we walked into on our way home was out of chicken and burgers. Insert insanity here. I finally went down stairs to the front desk with Gary and made one of the queens working behind the counter to call up every pizza place until we found one that would deliver. I hate Domino�s but the fuckers came through and we passed out. The drive home was uneventful minus the church going folks that were dressed in solid colors and had their church hats on. Marcus, Gary, and Reggie are black so they would hum and sing gospel songs whenever we walked past the church going folk, or anyone that we though looked like they were about ready to go to church. Favorite choices included �Jesus is on the main line� and �Amazing Grace.� They also decided that the *ding dong* noise that goes off when you walk into the stores actually sounds like �NI--GGAS� alerting the staff that some black folk just walked into the store. We would then trade of who said �NI� and who said �GGAS.� I usually said �NI� and Marcus would follow up with the �GGAS.�

Anywhozit, I�m tired, I�m tired, and I�m tired. Pictures from the city of nasty brothers and stanky bums will be up shortly. Sorry for the delays in updates but when you�re slinging soap for a living you ain�t got much free time. I�ll check y�all later.

e.