Let me spin the yarn about a trip that changes one's life. Two days and two nights in the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia PA. I stayed on the 23rd floor of a hotel that stood opposite City Hall. I had taken off work for this trip so my freedom to do whatever I want was at an all time high. I set aside my preconceptions as a Pittsburgher and geared up for an all time experience. My one full day came about and that morning I started off hot in the early morning, walking to a breakfast place about a mile away from the hotel, it was a fairly millennial-coded type breakfast place where I got eggs and sausage. It wasn't a blow your mind breakfast but it was a satisfactory start to the day.
Then, my next move was to get touristy things out of the way. I walked down the historical section of Philly, went to a museum on the American Revolution that was pretty solid, not my favorite time in history but "When in Rome" yanno? After about an hour there I went and saw the Liberty Bell which was an okay experience, when you see the bell it kinda makes you go "Yep, that's definitely the Liberty Bell" not a mind-blown experience either but very cool to finally see after being a Pennsylvanian my whole life. Also, boy do they make sure you know the "crack" is actually a repair, a very "Uhm actually *tips fedora*" type moment.
After that came the real fun stuff, rubbing elbows with the locals and taking in the atmosphere of the city. I walked through Chinatown and went to some very interesting markets, you know it's good because my shoes were kinda sticking to the decades old linoleum flooring. All in all Chinatown was a very interesting place but my overall goal was to make it to Philadelphia Eddie's Chinatown Tattoo to get some art. According to my research in the 1970s that tattoo shop was one of the places to be within the tattoo space. I went and met the artists that were there that day, Brianna Jo Ballinghoff and Braden Kendall and I got stickers and such from Brianna which I do really love her style and I got a Star Wars print for one of my friends from Braden. Great artists and I had a solid conversation with them, being someone who likes tattoos as an art form yet doesn't have any themselves is an interesting contradiction for me to navigate but usually it goes well.
From there, it was off to the Reading Terminal Market for lunch and what a remarkable experience, friends who see each other every day grocery shopping chatting it up, city hall workers grabbing lunch, people just hanging out socializing. It really felt like what the human experience should be, elbow to elbow with your fellow humans. I got a burger (frankly, I forget the name of the restaurant) and it was a real working class burger, not a ton of frills but it got the job done and was satisfying. As an aside, I loved seeing all the bootleg LeBron James Philadelphia 76ers merch, that kind of thing warms my soul.
Lastly, on good advice I went and visited Studio One Tattoo right outside of the city in Norwood, PA. My goal was to see and purchase art from Dave Fox, in the pouring rain I made my way there and sadly Dave was not there but their shop hand Joe was there and I struck up one of the best conversations I've ever had with him. I got a detailed tattoo history lesson and he told me stories that just so underlined the passion and heart that goes into this type of artwork. He is a true student of the game and told me some of the best stories I ever heard from getting tattooed on a wooden ship from the 18th century in Virginia, his fascination with tattoos starting from staring at his dad's old carnival tattoo he got at 14 every day at the kitchen table growing up to just tons of stories on specific traditional tattoo designs that have been mainstays in the art form like wizards, panthers, little devils and so on and so forth. He treated me like he had known me for 20 years and showed me the space and had me go through hundreds of different historical flash designs. It was such a remarkable experience that really opened my eyes, going from simply liking the artwork on an aesthetic level to a point where I can have a deeper appreciation for the artwork and the camaraderie that surrounds that, plus the historical aspect of it all which is the real intriguing part to me. Joe described himself as "not an internet guy" but if he were ever to read this I hope he knows he made such an impact on me.
After that, it was back to the hotel room to work on the game and get down raw notes of my experiences. A walkable city with hundreds of years of history that is bustling every day, sun up to sundown. People from every walk of life working together whether they know it or not to keep the city alive. The magnitude and the scale of people and the city as a whole is so awe-inspiring. The people are truly the heart of the city, media wise Philadelphians get a rap for being crazy and wild which is true to some degree but I must have talked to dozens of citizens and what I saw was a deep appreciation for the place they call home and true, if at times begrudging love for their fellow humans. I lived a true writer's life for one day and I can say the feeling is one that cannot be replicated.
The one unfortunate thing is I did want to do was visit the art museum, not from a Rocky standpoint but I genuinely wanted to go around and stare at art like Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day off and take it in. They were sadly closed the days I was in town.
They say New York City is the city that never sleeps. If that's true Philadelphia is the city that takes the occasional cat nap. I left Philadelphia the next day with a renewed appreciation for our bigger brothers on the other side of the state.
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