Game Journal Prelude: Redskins at Eagles, 10/5/2008

For every one of the nine Redskins games I have attended over ten years and two stadiums in Philadelphia my benefactor and game partner lifetime Eagles fan, season ticket holder and Curly R reader/lurker Wilbert Montgomery, we have never taken the time to see much of Philadelphia. Wilbert Montgomery lives in rural southern Virginia, picks me up in urban northern Virginia and after games regardless of time we are always eager to get back home and hear our wives tell us about being good fathers.

So this time for our trip we decided to go and see Philadelphia the day before the 5 October 2008 Redskins at Eagles game five and check out the city. It did not hurt that the University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art was running a 100 piece exhibit on underground cartoonist R. Crumb, an exhibit that runs through December and is well worth it for anyone that has appreciated Mr. Natural so around 11 in the morning on Saturday 4 October 2008 we left Alexandria for Philadelphia.



Wilbert Montgomery's mom who cooks a mean scrapple knew we were coming up and called us midway there with news that our trip to the museum would be complicated by a spontaneous socialist rally for Barack Obama that in typical communist fashion would shut down the Ben Franklin to through traffic, it was going to be a tax raising liberal orgy of fake American values spewed for free by notorious America hater Bruce Springsteen.

Fortunately for us that rally was at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, not the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art so we never had to get near enough to share our wealth.

We dropped our stuff off at Wilbert Montgomery's parents' house and headed into Philadelphia.



It fascinates me that these are the very interstate highways trod by our founding fathers.



It is jarring to see refineries and heavy industry by the side of the road as we do in Philadelphia, in the Washington area there is none of this and our air is just as bad so the difference in behavior of the people in the two cities cannot be attributed to air quality alone.



Wilbert Montgomery getting a good laugh out of my prediction for tomorrow's game.



The god of petroleum lives in Philadelphia.



On approach, a pretty good view of the skyline. Liberty One and Two at right, they popped up in 1987 and 1990 in violation of the implied Philadelphia height restriction. The Comcast Center, to the left of the Liberty towers is even taller and was completed in June of this year and there is a story that since that implied height restriction limiting buildings to no higher than Philadelphia City Hall with the iconic statue of William Penn atop was violated there is a curse on the city's pro sports teams. It is of note than none of them has won a championship since Liberty One in 1987. Right now as we speak the Philadelphia Phillies are in the World Series so perhaps the curse will be broken this year.



As we made our way down to the Drexel-U Penn student ghetto we got stuck at the light going left at Philadelphia 30th Street Station. There were police as you can see from the photo, I did not get my camera out in time to get any earlier photos, there were a half dozen buses that came out in front of us from left of the jersey walls and made a left, our right, at a high rate of speed. Surmising from what all was happening in Philadelphia that day it could have been Bruce Springsteen but later we learned that he played solo acoustic.

So I think it was the Redskins. This photo was around 3pm, perhaps Matt Terl can corroborate this story.



The view from our parking spot, down 36th Street across Chestnut Street, right at the border between Drexel and U Penn.




A shot downtown as I cross Chestnut Street.



From inside the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art, a subway stop literally right outside.



The institute's current exhibits. We saw the Douglas Blau and R. Crumb shows.



Later they would not let me take a picture of the R. Crumb bio spot so maybe I was not supposed to take this one. The Douglas Blau exhibit was incredible, his thing is to take random photos and images, none larger than framed eight by ten, and group them together in a theme. The smallest was maybe 16 images, the largest covered an entire wall. It was excellent.



Looking out the window on the landing between floors. The sign is ancient looking and says quote all you have to do is ask unquote, proving that sarcasm is not irony.



Wilbert Montgomery assessing the video installation and the round couches on casters.



I sat down on one of the round moving couches, it was really easy to move around. It seemed to invite me to lay back so I took the obligatory photo looking up. Did I mention I was in an arts space?



On reflection this look out the window at the sunny fall day may have meant more to me when I took it than when I look at it.



Odd stairs and apparently not part of the exhibit. At some point over this weekend someone told me that these were real, library stairs or something. Don't make sense to me.



Los Angeles Magazine, October 2008 issue.



Leaving the institute.



In other news Philadelphia has a subway.



Wilbert Montgomery bought some stuff for his neighbor. When I asked why neighbor would be so interested in R. Crumb shwag having not seen the exhibit, exactly what about R. Crumb or neighbor's experiences or state of mind would make an R. Crumb artifact meaningful, he was evasive.



The Porsche Cayenne limousine parked out in front of the hotel garage where we parked. Nice.



After dropping off our stuff we walked back into the ghetto to find a place to eat and watch game three of the Phillies-Brewers playoff series. I took a photo of this book store display because I thought it was a really great looking collection of works on the ancient world.



The New Deck Tavern where we ate and drank, from the back.



And from the front as I took a call from the wife.



From the same spot as the photo above, looking to my left at the Liberty Towers.



In the basement of the New Deck Tavern. Where do these places get these faux old stuff?



Leaving Philadelphia.



Still leaving Philadelphia, 30th Street Station on right.



Don't ask, Wilbert Montgomery was the designated driver.



Wilbert Montgomery getting us home.

embed 1

embed 1 (Youtube here)

We left in the fourth inning of the Phillies game, we wanted to watch the end of the game at Wilbert Montgomery's parents' house and get a good night's sleep before the Redskins-Eagles game, neither of us knows Philadelphia radio and what station the Phillies game would be on, I ran tape while searching to hilarious effect, nota bene fornicators and strange flesh.

embed 2

embed 2 (Youtube here)

Still have not found the game, what we did find was that late night Saturday AM radio in Philadelphia is dominated by conservative talkers. More hilarity ensues.


Not pictured: getting back to Wilbert Montgomery's parents' house and discovering that cable station TBS on which the Phillies game was being broadcast is not part of Wilmington Delaware basic cable coverage and as such we cannot watch the game, Wilbert Montgomery setting up a radio and searching for the game as I complete the Eagles preview. Then we slept, tomorrow was the game.



All photos and videos by me.