An Evening in Philly

Due to a scheduling conflict, this weeks review of Inception has been postponed. I offer my hereto unknown trip to Philly as a consolation prize. A couple weeks ago I had an idea that I would go down to Flynn’s in Philly for a surprise visit. After an aggravating drive down and yelling at every man, woman, child, and elderly person I saw, I finally made it to his apartment. Time to let the drinking begin! Unfortunately I happened to pick the wrong Saturday to visit him as he and his girlfriend decided to go to Ocean City, MD that weekend. *Gasp* Whatever should I do? Well I wasn’t about to waste a trip down to Philly, let alone deal with the surely still horrendous traffic at 7:30 in the evening. Fuck it, I said, I’m going to Eulogy Belgian Ale House and see what mischief I can dig up for myself. As my grandmother used to say oh so politically incorrectly, “I was free, white and 21.”

A brisk walk, a short subway ride, and 13 begging bums later, I had arrived. The place was dead, as most bars are until 9 or so. “Barkeep! A Lager and keep ‘em coming,” I said as I plopped my fabulously sculpted ass on a barstool. I scanned the bar in a vain attempt to see if there was anyone I knew. When I got to the guy sitting closest to me I stopped. Something about him was awfully familiar, couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I drank about half of my beer pondering where on Earth I could have possibly seen him. Then it hit me like an out of control Georgian luger. It was Richard Dawson. “Holy shit!” I exclaimed, nearly falling off my stool. I slammed back the rest of my Lager, regained my composure, and walked up to the world’s greatest game show host. “Excuse me, sir, but are you Richard Dawson?” “Why yes I am.” “Well it is an honor to meet you sir. Can I buy you a drink?” “Well that’s nice of you to say that, son. And I’ve never turned down a free drink. What’s your name?”

So there we sat, drinking while he regaled me with tales from his career such as how he used to get handjobs from Phyllis Diller on air during the Match Game, when he had a fist fight with Orson Welles over a game of Scrabble, and when he and Charles Nelson Reilly did PCP and threw a police car through a pawn shop window. All the laughing and beer let nature take its course and I went to the pisser. Coming back from the can, I had to rub my eyes. Surely the man walking through the front door was not Jeff Anderson AKA Randal from Clerks. Sure as shit, it was. Well I was already drinking with one celebrity so why not make it two? “Mr. Anderson, my name is Marty and I would be honored if you would come have a drink with me and Richard Dawson.” He probably thought I was just some drunk nut until he saw Mr. Dawson. “Holy Jesus on a crapper, that IS Richard Dawson!” A pitcher later and we’re back to drinking, talking, and laughing. Turns out the reason Jeff was at Eulogy was because he was meeting his good friend Val Kilmer for drinks. Ten minutes later and our little group grows to four.

At this point me and Rich are pushing 6 drinks a piece and Jeff and Val are pounding them away. We notice the bar still isn’t that hopping and it’s almost quarter after 10. “By Odin’s fucking beard, we need some fresh blood in this place,” exclaimed Rich as he pulled out his phone. 20 minutes later and Ryan Reynolds and Robert Downey Jr expand our group by 2. Time for some car bombs. Kilmer was the slowest so he had to pay. Pansy. A 3 wise men and a Kamakazi later and it was time for us to do some bar crawling. We stumble out into the night and found ourselves a hole in the wall bar to wet our whistles. Robert managed to pick up a hooker on the way as well. After taking over the bar, it doesn’t take us long to realize the guy in the dimly lit corner is none other than Mel Gibson. Turns out with all the recent scandals going on he just wanted to disappear for a bit. “Pull that stick out of your ass and drink with us you Christ hugger,” says Mr. Reynolds. And our group adds yet another to our roster. Some various things I overheard.

“No, no, yeah, well you’d be surprised. Affleck had 4 gerbils up there. Kevin had no idea how he was going to shoot around that.”
“Alanis Morissette? Doesn’t shave a thing. It was like she had Pam Grier’s afro in her pants.”
“You’d be surprised how many wives wanted to add 50 seconds to my clock, if you know what I mean.”
“Well I decided to shave my beard after people kept mistaking me for the Geico caveman.”
“Honest to God, John Favreau has a Prince Albert. He smacked Terrance Howard with it when he wanted more money.”

Somehow Christian Bale and James Caan showed up somewhere in here. Another round of car bombs and it was off to another bar, this time Sugar Moms. We ditched Mel when he saw some jewelry stores and started shouting that the Jews were responsible for his wife taping their conversations. Not sure where he ended up that night.
Now Sugar Moms is where things started to go downhill. We apparently liquored the narcotic sobriety out of Downey and he started doing blow off his hooker’s ass. He then called Edward Norton and laughed at him for 5 minutes about not being recast as the Hulk. Caan became enraged when he didn’t get a turn with the lady of the evening and glass jawed her. So Caan and Downey start fighting and get thrown out. Reynolds and me cleaned the floor with Kilmer and Bale at bubble hockey (I made sure the Canadian was on my team). Val and Christian start arguing about who was the better Batman and decide the only way to settle the dispute is to see who can throw their homemade Pabst Blue Ribbon can batarangs the farthest. One crappily made batarang to a bouncer’s head later and they’re out. Anderson was playing Ms. Pacman and after the machine ate his last quarter he put his fist through the screen. Dawson, Reynolds, and I grab him and run out of the bar, bouncers in tow. After losing them, we rushed Jeff to the ER where we were reunited with Robert who was OD’ing.

After the docs stitch Jeff back together and Rich stole 3 vials of morphine, we headed back to Eulogy for a quick nightcap. Reynolds puked out the cab’s window and thus had to pay for the ride. A glass of Baileys each and it was time for us to call it an evening. Richard Dawson thanked me for the kick ass evening and told me to look him up the next time I was in California. He took Jeff with him since he passed out. Heavy drinking and sever loss of blood make strange bedfellows. Me and Reynolds shared a cab and he got me a room at the hotel he was staying at with instructions to look him up as well should I ever find myself in California. And that ladies and gentlemen, is the greatest night of drinking I have ever had.