Philadelphia Trot - One Last Thing Before I Go

The time has come, with a new position in my job I have now lost my Globetrotting flexabilities and moving to a new "shitty", Philadelphia. With less opportunity to blog, I have brought in my friend Topfive Guy, who will tell you his thoughts on books, movies, music and things of that nature without spoiling endings. Topfive is our fifth writer here at Can You Believe That Guy? and here is his first story- One Last Thing Before I Go

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One Last Thing Before I Go is the latest book by Jonathan Tropper, one of my favorite authors. The books main character is Drew a divorced man who lives in an apartment complex infested with fellow divorced and down fathers. Back when Drew had motivation to live he was the drummer in a one hit wonder band before the singer, left the band to go solo. In between now playing weddings and bar mitzvahs in a cover band for a job and sitting by the pool of the complex with his fellow down and out dads, Drew suffers an almost fatal heart attack when his daughter Casey comes to visit him to tell him she’s pregnant. He wakes in his hotel room to find out that his ex-wife’s new fiancé is his doctor and he needs elective surgery immediately before he gets worse and dies. Figuring his life is already over, he turns down the surgery and we spend the length of the book watching his estranged family try and persuade him into getting the surgery and renewing his life. The book is hilarious and quick paced with a zig zag relationships that make you wonder where you find these kinds of people and why aren't you hanging out with them?

"Be a better father. Be a better man. Fall in love. Die."

Rating: 4 out of 5

TOP FIVE SONGS I WANT PLAYED AT MY FUNERAL AND WHY

- Brand New, You Won’t Know, well like most Can You Believe That Guy? bloggers Brand New is my favorite band. The song is appropriate yet aggressively sad.

- Marilyn Manson, Speed Of Pain, slow and depressing song, I hope this will bring the house down along with the tears.

-America, Sister Golden Hair, this song has absolutely no death related meaning, nor is America a favorite band of mine, yet it's always had a catchy way of meaning too much to me. Plus we got to have some smiles.

- Brand New, Soco Ameretto and Lime, a fun song from a fun time of my life, that is easy to sing along to and hard to hate.

- Oasis, Don't Look Back In Anger, my first love (favorite band) have to play a part in my end. They shaped my young rock mind and this song is perfect to jam out to when I have finally "rocked" out

Flashback 10- You Could Feel the Place Shake

Being a young 15 year old boy with a sports team that is a yearly underdog isn’t the easiest task. But there I sat, October 16^th 1999 in Shea Stadium watching my Mets play the Braves, down in the best of seven series three games to none. Queue to the bottom of the 8^th inning losing 2-1, Roger Cedeno slaps a leadoff single off John Smoltz. Next two batters record outs and now the Mets are down to the last 4 outs of their season. Cedeno steals third, and Melvin Mora walks. John Rocker on the mound, fresh in all our minds;

The left-handed closer saved five games against New York during the regular season and two in this series. During the season, he said he hated the Mets and prior to this showdown wondered how many times the Braves would have to beat them before their fans would "shut up."

About his experiences in New York City and answering a question about whether he would ever play for the New York Yankees or the New York Mets.

“

I'd retire first. It's the most hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the 7 Train to the ballpark looking like you're riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It's depressing... The biggest thing I don't like about New York are the foreigners. You can walk an entire block in Times Square and not hear anybody speaking English. Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this country?[3]

”

During the interview, he also spoke of his opinion of the New York Mets and their fans:

“

Nowhere else in the country do people spit at you, throw bottles at you, throw quarters at you, throw batteries at you and say, 'Hey, I did your mother last night — she's a whore.' I talked about what degenerates they were and they proved me right.

”

John Olerud at the plate, already having hit a home run accounting for the Mets only run in the game so far, Cedeno now on third and Mora now on second.  Cedeno steals third, tying run.  Mora steals second, good ahead run. Olerud continues to lift the team on his back and singles to center, scoring both runners as the Mets would go onto win the game. Sitting in the Upper Deck I looked over to my dad and said “Is Shea going to collapse?” The jumping and roaring of the crowd had the entire stadium shaking. All he said was “Hold on, Benitez is coming in”. But to the surprise to the local faithful Armando went 1-2-3 in the top of the 9^th to force a game 5, the next day.

Not having tickets in advance to Game 5, seemed not to be a problem. Now it was, but fortunately I quickly got my hands on 4 tickets for the game, before I even got home from Game 4 (pre internet era and being 15, that was still an impressive feat). The next day my dad couldn’t suffer any more of nail biting and told me to take the bus and train to the game with my friends. But I didn’t have a lot of Met friends, and the few friends I did either had plans or couldn’t afford the tickets. So I took my Yankee friend and went to the stadium in hopes of selling the 2 tickets to scalpers. Hours before the game I was holding out for the best price I could, I lost track of time and missed the beginning of the game. We hear the roar of the stadium as John Olerud continued his tear hitting a first inning home run. I was ready to give these tickets away for free now and ended up selling them half of face value, only to walk into the hated Larry “Chipper” Jones crossing the plate in the 4^th inning to tie the game 2-2. On and off rain marched into the game as both teams refused to take the lead. 9^th inning came and went, 10^th inning followed suit, 11^th inning nothing changed, and 12^th inning more of the same.  The crowds doing everything we can to make something happen, my entire row tried at least 10 different pre pitch good luck gestures or stances at this time.

Then there was the top of the 13^th inning, Braves runner on first and Chipper at the plate, he hits one in the gap! Rounding the bases is the Braves runner, is it the first run in 9 innings? Mora to Edgardo Alfonso relay throw to the plate….HES OUT! Inning over! John Rocker came on to pitch the bottom of the 13^th and when he exited the game the next inning he mocked the home crowd by pretending to “boo” himself.

After an uneventful 14^th (except for the SECOND 7^th inning stretch) came the 15^th inning, the Braves hit the score board with one singular run to bring the marathon of 0’s on the scoreboard to an end. Mets season has to be done now right? In the 15^th inning of this almost 6 hour marathon.  Dunston singled, as the rain peaked back in. Matt Franco walked…wait what’s happening? Alfonso bunted the runners over, for the first out of the inning. Bringing up the hero John Olerud, only to be intentionally walked to load the bases. Todd Pratt bases loaded bottom of the 15^th, childhood dream, ground ball double play could end the Mets season, and a ground ball base hit wins the game. He does neither, he walks instead to tie the game and keep the bases loaded.

Enter Robin Ventura. Almost anything wins the game.  2 balls 1 strike. I’m shivering standing on my seat as even my Yankee fan friend is cheering. We are in the Mezzanine which has a hangover Upper Deck and our vision is a little obstructed on a fly ball to the outfield. But a fly ball to the outfield wins the game anyway on a sacrifice fly. Robin hits deep fly ball, the outfielders jog in, off the field and the stadium starts to shake. We are dancing on top of the chairs, as the Mets rush the field and tackle Robin Ventura between first and second base. I never saw the ball land, but I assume as I saw Pratt touch second and turn around to tackle Robin, it landed somewhere on the field. WHO CARES? THEY WON. 15 fucking innings! The place is still shaking 10 minutes after, as my friend and I run across the stadium high fiving and dancing with the people that literally weathered the storm. 40 minutes go by before we leave the stadium as they BLARE music like the attendant left the controls to go party, MOJO RISING. We are going to be the first team to win a series down 3 games to none.  And now the afternoon game has ended past the bus schedule and we have no way to get home.  My dad miserably comes to pick us up on a Sunday night before school  another hour later.

That’s when I found out the truth, the ball never did land on the field. King of Grand Slams Robin Ventura actually hit a Grand Slam Home Run….but wait, he never circled the bases! He never scored. The ruling on the field was since Todd Pratt failed to advance past second, tackling Robin Ventura never making it to second base it was recorded as a single. A SINGLE THAT WENT OVER THE FENCE. The Mets won 4-3*, because they should of won 7-3 if they didn’t mob Robin before he rounded the bases.  But then there wouldn’t be the best moment in Mets History (Disclaimer: It’s the 3^rd best moment in Mets history, but 1 and 2 are the Mets winning the World Series  and ordinary plays, this was history a playoff game with an asterisk to the score) I was mind boggled. I didn’t even see it. The ball went up, the game was over and I went nuts, missing in person playoff baseball history. Wouldn’t want it any other way.

Penn State, Moving On Concert

I told Yoso Guy's friend Blake I would only road trip to Penn State, if we could molest little boys in the shower and Blake already had some candidates in mind....when in Rome, right?

Seriously we went for a concert, Brand New + Mgmt + Big Boi with Blake's friend Rachael. Upon arriving to Penn State we decided to go to the famous Pickles Tap Room. On our walk to Pickles, we saw a college kid hanging outside his friends car playing a harmonica, scrub.
After Pickles we parked in a parking lot and opened our bottle of vodka and got good and tolerable for what was next. An open field of college kids at a "substance free" event, moving on from the Penn State child rapes cleverly entitled "Moving On". 

First started with some local bands, before Penn State got its country on with a "national" act that played three cover songs. Than the end all of all, Brand New. Amongst a very average and predictable setlist, we got crushed inbetween a sea of college kids pushing back and forth like the tide. That Jesse Lacey is so hot though. After the set finished we made a fair deal of 3 sour patch kids for a cracker and the guy we were trading with's girlfriend to take a picture of us, seemed fair, no?
We camped out for Big Boi and MGMT closing the rape free show. Before driving what seemed to be 17 hrs home. A trip a week will keep the doctor away.

Freaking Weekend

Local underground metal show, with a national act that just returned to the scene? Yoso Guy and Rush My Frat Guy are all over that. Let's get weird...

The first band wasn't too bad. Amazingly the lead singer split in two, than back to one. I mean I was watching the stage and all of a sudden out of nowhere a guest vocalist appeared with the same exact voice sang a few lines and disappeared as covertly as he appeared. Than this black guy decided to headbang against the stage but noone taught him headbanging was with your head on your shoulders and he kept thrusting into the stage giving the illusion he was a dog in heat and the stage was your leg.

The second band was better, despite the worst name on the lineup. The show had a total of 50 people at a decent sized venue so there was a lot of space on the dance floor for moshing. Well noone was really moshing but everyone was standing on the side so the dancefloor was empty. The singer was obviously delusional demanding the crowd clear the dance floor. Speaking of moshing throughout the show every kid moshing fell every 30 seconds, we came to assume the dance floor was lined with invisible banana peels. He also unknowingly yelled elephant about five times as this fat girl came back inside from smoking a cigarette, or maybe knowingly.

The third band was as generic as you can get. Three bald dudes, one long hair dude and one normal guy looking lost as a death metal band.

Last band, Remembering Never, known for their hard stances on religion, animal rights, kkk support and pro women's rights and preaching personality about all the above. As a band returning to the scene with several years of absence and no new material they failed to impress. Instead of playing their best selling cd, they fed us their bullshit and played songs they haven't even recorded yet. 

Thank god it was a 16+ show and my sober ass fit in with all these kids.

Ron Darling Day, Mets vs Nats? Yoso Guy and Blake are all over that. Let's go Mets....

The giveaway was a Ron Darling bobblehead. I tried to sneak and get two, unsuccessfully. The trick of getting two giveaways is hiding your first and going to another line like you just walked in. Example A, drunk guy: He tries this simple task and seemingly gets away with it till the vendor realizes he has a stadium cup of beer, realizing he already came in and was coming back for a second he was publicly scolded and denied a second Ron Darling. Seriously though man, act like you just walked in.....you had a beer in your hand...what the fuck....

Later at the smokehouse, I was asked a total of five times, if I was sure I wanted my chicken sandwich plain, than as if realizing she's only a  stadium vendor and prone to mistakes she had to unwrap my sandwich and prove to me that after 15 mins they correctly but chicken on two buns and nothing else. Like most of my generation she was extremely proud of herself for such a small accomplishment.

  After the Mets win we went downstairs to Mcfaddens to watch the Rangers eliminate the Devils. While Blake was ordering a drink in between the legs of girls dancing on the bar at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon I feel a punch on my back. I turn around to see a midage woman who promptly tells me to turn back around so she can continue massaging me. I do as I'm told till about 10 punches later when I turn around and tell her sucks at giving massages and I'm tired of her punching my back. Obviously insulted she curses me out and sticks her tongue out at me like she's 5 years old and storms off. Back to the girls dancing on the bar is it too much not to block the TV.  I feel like I was in public with any of my ex-girlfriends. "Please move" "Not now" "Wait till the games over PLEASE". Not to mention all there jumping around and dancing had my Ron Darling bobblehead attention too, he's bobbing his head along as I'm trying to do play by play with him. Some guys are easily distracted, but luckily I'm sober.

The Walking Ends...Finally!

Zeta III

I turned to my left and looked at from where the soft voice had come from.

No way.

 Could it be? Could it?

YES! It was. A car, of course, but more importantly, there are chicks, ladies, college-age women!

“Oh, hey ladies! How are all of you tonight?” spoke up Old Man Withers.

There were four white female in the car. Hopefully single, of course.  And of course they were all white. 

That’s the flavor that exists up here so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise.

“We’re trying to get to Joel’s. Do you know if we’re headed in the right direction?” Spoke the leader of the group. She was riding shotgun. She looked friendly. She was looking goooooood.

“Joel’s, you say? Okay, cool. A little night out on the town then. Have you ladies been there before or will it be the first time for all of you?” replied Old Man Withers.

I quickly glanced over at Billy Ray. He was in total Terminator mode. He was scanning and memorizing each girl, distinct features, flaws, the complete works. I turned away and did the same while Old Man Withers continued yapping it up with them.

“What town are you guys from? Or are you from New York City, Long Island, out of state?”

I heard them talking but paid them no mind.

Could this happen? Was this going to happen? I mean, here I was with my two pledge brothers and we were on the cusp of living the dream. All that needed to happen was for out bodies to be magically arranged among the ladies in the SUV.

You know, the importance of this situation was clear to me. If Billy Ray, myself and Withers ended up on a kick ass adventure with the ladies then this night would become my “This is why you should rush and pledge this Fraternity because this is how my life changed. This is when the gates of college fun were opened to me. As the first in my family to go to college I had to maximize the experience. 

“So we just keep driving down this road and take the exit to the college town and make a left after going through the toll, right?”

“Exactly. Joel’s will be on the left; big house looking building. You’ll see the big sign that says Joel’s”

“Yeah.”

“Just straight and follow the signs.”

“Thanks guys!”

“Thank you so much!”

The girl driving shifted out gears and the SUV began to move then just as quickly stopped. “Hey, do you guys need a ride somewhere? Any bit helps, right?”

“Yeah, we can squeeze in and move around. We can fit.” Chimed another voice.

Oh my god.

No way. This had to be a set up? Were they being serious? They had to be. No one could be this nice. Were they just being nice? Did the brothers send these girls to check up on us? Shit, we were to be invisible to cars on the road too.

I looked over at Billy Ray and Old Man Withers. We were a terribly uncoordinated pledge class. We were a living model in what schizophrenic mess looks like, but in that moment the three of us made eye contact and we could all understand each other. Is this really happening? We were on the same page for once. I’m pretty sure we telepathically smiled and said gigitty.

Gigitty. 

“Uh, thanks for the offer, but we’re fine walking.”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

“You guys are sure you’re fine walking?”

“Yes, we are. It’s not really cold and it’s a beautiful night to look at the sky.” It hurt to say this so much. You don’t know pain until you experience something like this.

The girls drove away and we continued walking.

OH WHAT A MISSED OPPORTUNITY!!!! Oh my, we could have gotten some ass! We could have had sex! One of us at least with two girls! At the same time!!!!

I mean, let’s think about this for a moment. Yes, we’re in the middle of pledging the Fraternity and the goal is to complete the process then have sex with the ladies, but if we had sex with some ladies while pledging then that should be considered pretty badass, but in the middle of a pledging event, well, that is a story of kings. Everybody aspires to have a kingly moment. Especially because if we had gone with the girls in the SUV it could have led to sharing a celebratory, good journey and thanks for helping us out drink then some socializing and then a full on good time. Eventually the good time could, would, should culminate in the best of good time moments; sex, possibly. Maybe.

We continued walking until the rode took us a bit uphill then down and somehow we found the rail trail again, which we jumped back on.

“Remember that we are not supposed to be seen. I think, they’ll definitely have brothers looking out for us. They might be out at the bars, the gas station or getting pizza.” I said as the road started to dip down and we came up with the off campus college apartments to our left and the College to our right. We were by the two huge parking lots by gym and behind one of the art buildings and the library.

We had a choice to make.

Keep following the road into town or cut across the snow-covered field to our left and take a backwoods walking type road or path back to the Fraternity house.

“Let’s cut through the field. We won’t have to sneak pass Main Street.  We cut across and then we stroll back.”  Billy Ray was the woodsman of the group. The dude was from bumble-fuck upstate New York so I trusted him when it came to wilderness type situations.

We decided to cut across. We took off one after another with a few seconds in between. No big deal. 

We were the black ops pledges on the verge of completing a pledge task. Nothing was going to stop us. It suddenly clicked in my head. In my early teen years, but after my preteen years, I spent an ungodly amount of time playing Rainbow Six on the Nintendo 64 video game system. Or Contra for the even more pure video game purists. All I did was play through

We were about half way across the field when the snow started to quiver and then it happened.

…

Oh shit!

…

Whatdafuck?

I blinked and looked down. The snow was a helluva lot closer than a second ago. What had happened? 

Then it dawned on me.

Come on! Really? Seriously?

The snow I was walking under gave out and I fell into the snow. Literally.

Imagine any scene in any movie involving a rope bridge, or any bridge of questionable stability, in which our heroic hero is dashing across the bridge only to soon realize the bridge is quickly collapsing behind him and nipping at his heals instantly. That is what I felt and lived, except I did not make it across.

The bridge’s demise beat me.

“Oh shit!” I’m pretty sure I heard Old Man Withers say. He chuckled a bit when he realized that I in fact had sunk into the snow.

Why me?

Billy Ray turned around and trotted back to me where he and Old Man Withers tried to pull me out of the snow. By the way, I wasn’t feeling buzzed or anything that could impart more clumsiness on me. I tried to push, climb, lift myself out of the hole that I was literally in. No dice. Eventually through some pledge brother assistance I got out. We finished crossing across and merged back onto the rail trail path.

We were in total Rainbow Six  black ops, covert, stealth mode. We were already pretty much dressed in all black and walking in the cover of darkness. We were three ski masks away from looking like robbers; robbers looking to unburden college kids of their beer and bottles of vodka.

We followed the rail trail path to where it intersects the street on which the Fraternity house sat on the corner. We were maybe about 300, 200 or 450 steps away from completing the walk.

Old Man Withers pulled out his phone and called Pledgemaster Trash. We heard loud music more so than the instructions. We looked up at the house sitting on the corner. The street dipped down towards us with a few cars parked on the side. We were told to run up to the house and go through the gate and then wait. One by one and not to get seen.

We saw a flashlight shine from the driveway. Billy Ray took off running up to the house. Only one car drove by, but Billy Ray was already on the other side of the gate.

The flashlight shined again and I took off for the house.

And that is the exact moment when it dawned on me. I felt like I was three years old again and running across the border. The rules were basically the same; do not get caught or be seen.

I was halfway to the Fraternity house when I saw the approaching headlights.

Oh shit! La migra! INS! I can’t be seen! Must hide!

I dove to the side of the road like a flying squirrel jumping off a tree and crawled behind a black car. The headlights got closer and then kept driving. I slowly raised my head over the hood of the car. The coast was clear.

I decided to use the cars to cover me until I got past the gate finally.

Old Man Withers followed through the gate soon after.

Brother Orgazmo was sitting on the raised deck that was enclosed by the gate, waiting for us. He had a pitcher beer next to him and several plastic cups. He poured a beer for each of us and instructed us to all drink.

We drank.

“Now put your blindfolds on.”

What the fuck?! 

“Haha, you thought it was going to be that easy?” spoke Brother Orgazmo. “Ain’t nothin’ free when you pledging.”

We were led to the basement of the Fraternity house and lined up against the wall. The a voice spoke.  

“Welcome back! Congratulations on accomplishing the task given to you. There may be hope for you after all. As you continue on the path to righteous brotherhood there will be times where you will need to depend on each other to see your way out of the fog and mist that blinds you. Tonight, your task will be challenging and difficult. It will push you beyond your limits and reveal things you may not have known about yourselves. Remove the blindfolds and look down at what is placed before you.”

I blinked as my vision returned. I looked down and saw a table with three pizza boxes and three pitchers of beer.

“Best of luck and may the best pledge rise above.”

So I never got laid that night, but the pizza and beer were delicious and that is a fraternity life lesson. If the booty doesn’t show then pizza and beer will.