Philadelphia, PA - Yer-a-Peein Vacation

The iconic ravings of Rocky Balboa, founder of Philadelphia, immortalized in bronze.

In Europe, since everything is so tiny (three-wheeled cars!) it's common for people to make day-trips to other countries and pretend not to be tourists while enjoying the sights and destinations that they don't have right in their own backyards - which are also tiny. Here in the United States, we don't know much about "other countries," but we certainly will take a two-hour bus ride for the opportunity to piss on the streets of a city we don't live in.

For a mere 12 dollars (that's 2 euros for my readers across the pond) I recently chartered a bus trip "out west" with some like-minded colleagues to spend a day in the great city of Philadelphia, or as they call it; the "City of Hovering Doves," though I'm not quite sure why. I didn't see a single dove for the entire duration of my visit.

Philly's "Love" sculpture is suspended on electrified stilts to keep fat tourists from becoming lodged in the crooked "O" as they do so commonly in NYC.

Anybody who's lived in New York City for too long (three months or so) will immediately notice that all the buildings in Philly are huge. Even the stones they used to put the buildings together are huge, almost like the city was built by giants or aliens. Of course, everyone knows that Philadelphia was built by boring old regular construction workers, and sadly, is one of the few American cities that was not built on Rock N' Roll.

What's in Philly then? In a word - Beer. "What about cheese steaks?" you may simper plaintively to yourself as you read along. What about them? I propose that any food product to which cheese flavored syrup is applied via a plastic nozzle is not worth a trip down the block, let alone a trip across state lines. However, if you like beer (who doesnt!?) then Philadelphia is the place for you. Did you know that there are types of beer that are aged in barrels, like wine? As douchey as it sounds, it's true, and I didn't even know about it until I visited Philly. Sure, cask-aged lambics may taste like somebody wrapped a lemon in a banana peel and tossed it into a vat of Harp for a year or two, but it's expensive, so it must be delicious.

If you're looking for a beer experience, Monk's Cafe is your best bet. You can find just about any sort of beer you'd ever want to drink here. I found a 20 dollar bottle of Dogfish Head's Noble Rot, which is brewed with grapes that have been infected by a (presumably scrumptious) sort of fungus.

Noble rot on the vine. Is your mouth watering yet?

Noble Rot in the bottle, beside a mysterious pair of gloves. More appetizing? YOU DECIDE.

After a discovery such as this, I'm willing to say that fungus is perhaps one of the most prolific servants of mankind, as it provides us with food, antibiotics, wild hallucinations, and nerdy alcohol. What more could you need?

Though a single day may not seem like much time to explore the city, I had achieved my Pennsylvania-based goals in a matter of hours. I was eager to bid the fine city of Philadelphia a hearty "Yo Adrian!" and take my leave, but should the temptation of a fruity and complicated lager e'er again beckon my soul, I shall return with a wide grin.

Astoria - It Might As Well Be in Oregon

Astoria residents gaze across the East River to freedom and really expensive bars

Astoria is a quiet neighborhood at the northern tip of Queens, replete with many a Greek restaurant, Beer Garden, Hookah bar, and pizza place that also sells hamburgers. It was named for John Jacob Astor, who was the richest man in America in the early 1800s. In fact, the name was chosen with the hope that Astor would donate money to the neighborhood. Though he was worth roughly 40 million dollars at the time, Astor (the patron saint of "one percenters") only donated $500 to the fledgling village, and never actually set foot in it despite living roughly one mile away.

Astor: Fuck Haircuts, Get Money.

Thanks to Astor, the tradition of living really close to Queens but never actually going there became common practice among New Yorkers in other boroughs, and the phrase "Why don't you just come to Brooklyn instead?" was carved into an ornate granite archway that had been meant to decorate the northern side of the Pulaski Bridge, but was never installed because nobody in Brooklyn has a real job. As usual, the deficit of "white people" in Astoria lends it a certain air of authenticity that can only be achieved by lacking both Whole Foods and Urban Outfitters. A veritable Wild West for the "Urban Homesteader," Astoria is a harsh mistress who demands you go to three stores instead of two when you need to find grass-fed beef, outdated camera equipment, and "loft art" all in the same shopping trip.

Climbing a mountain of produce for a box of Kleenex really makes you feel like you earned the right to blow your nose.

Despite all the "scary" ethnic people in Long Island City, Brooklynites from such bastions of youth "culture" as Williamsburg and Bushwick are slowly being scooted up and out of the honky paradise they've created to make way for actual rich people. This means that in roughly five years, the lower half of Queens will be festooned with cleverly named coffee shops, vegan delis, artisanal suspender factories, and whatever personal transportation fad replaces fixies by then (my bet's on "analog" Segways, which are just push mowers with pedals where the blades normally go.) It's only a matter of time before Camel makes a "Hunters Point" cigarette and the cycle begins anew. Will Astoria remain safe from the ravages of gentrification? With a little luck, and a lot of spanakopita, It's got at least another decade.

Chelsea - It Rhymes With Smellsea

Chelsea - a comparatively upscale neighborhood in the northern half of southern Manhattan - is a great place to grab a self-serious bite to eat, spend $300 on a "drape vest," and get hit on by affluent gay dudes who are super jacked because they have enough money and free time for things like gym memberships, sunbathing, and premium steroids. Chelsea features a prominent LGBT community, so a young man with money troubles may find gainful employment as a go-go boy at G Lounge, or in the bulging arms of an attentive "sugar daddy." Apart from the astronomical price of drinks, the only bad thing about Chelsea is that every single street smells like a dirty Humane Society kennel, because every single person in Chelsea owns a tiny dog that can piss more than twice its weight in pungent urine during each trip to the hot yoga studio. The most common sight in Chelsea is a "puggle" shivering in a tailored doggy sweater, sheepishly pooping on a pile of garbage set out by a "cultural fusion" restaurant while its owner hides his face behind a "drape vest" and pretends not to notice.

(In Chelsea, even the tiny dogs judge you for wearing flip-flops)
One of the most enjoyable (and surprisingly free) attractions in Chelsea is the High Line Park, which was built on a pre-existing freight train track. Though it was constructed during the Great Depression to transport crates full of homeless people to massive incinerators in the meat packing district, the track has since been converted into an elevated garden, featuring talking robot drinking fountains and a majestic view of every billboard in the area. The High Line offers a one-of-a-kind opportunity to enjoy the beauty of nature while simultaneously feeling trapped and disgusted by your urban lifestyle. If you're visiting in the summer, Chelsea Waterside Park is a great place to lay around spread-eagle with your oily ballsack swaddled in short shorts from American Apparel. Chelsea features many name-brand fashion outlets, but if you're in the mood for a unique shopping experience, visit boutique clothing store Behaviour. Here, for a mere $5,000 you can dress up like a glitch in the British Matrix and be the envy of that one super quiet guy on your floor who always wears his hair in a pony-hawk and carries an actual lunchbox to work.

Admit it Chelsea, a "drape vest" is just a fucking scarf with arm holes.

Times Square - The Unnervingly Bright Heart of Darkness

New York City's Times Square is one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world, partially because it is eternally festooned with giant undulating logos from the most recognizable junk food brands on the planet. If you came to New York City looking for fun, Times Square is the wrong place. In the '70s, Times Square was a haven for people looking to spend hundreds of dollars on hookers and shady drug deals. Now it's a meat grinder for tourists looking to spend hundreds of dollars on bags of M&Ms that only have one color of M&Ms inside, and paper weights that have pictures of the World Trade Center on them. In other words, it's gotten MUCH worse.

As you ply the flabby, cow-eyed crowds for escape routes to less morbid parts of the city, you will be accosted by various loud and slovenly men - some homeless, some promoting comedy shows, some selling guided tours. They may ask you where you're from, what brings you to the city, or even suggest that you resemble a glamorous celebrity, but don't be fooled- each and every one of them just wanna get inside your cute little wallet. Hold your money close and cherish your time with it, because if you aren't careful, that wallet will end up spread-eagle in the doorway of a double-decker bus before you realize you don't look anything like Robert Downey Junior.

If you take my advice to stay away from Times Square, but get lost and end up there anyway, I recommend keeping your feckless brain alive with lunch from Sbarro, an authentic Italian American Airplane Food Court Dining Experience. As foreign men shout at you to order from behind warm, Dali-esque stacks of languid pasta and saggy cheese, you will pay an alarmingly high price to coat your roiling intestines with the fluorescent orange oil of commerce. Now that I think about it, eating at Sbarro is alot like visiting Times Square.

Bon ah-pa-teet!

Don't Hassle Me, I'm New Here

About a year ago, I up and moved to New York City (or as Japan jokingly refers to it, the "Capital of the World") from a sleepy little border town called Tucson, Arizona. In Tucson, the bars close at 5pm and lawless bands of Mexican drug dealers roam the National Arizona Saguaro Forest in search of innocent patriots to kidnap and ransom for American jobs. One half of Tucson's population lounges on a myriad of dilapidated porches, "freeballing" in cutoff shorts and gorging on plate after plate of tepid gringo food. The remaining two quarters consist of severely impoverished folks, and Unbearable Californians. As I am descended from a long line of impoverished Unbearable Californians, and often wear the same pair of pants until the legs fall off at the knees, Tucson instantly felt like home to me upon my very first visit, and I made fast friends with many of the local students. I was happy, but I was riding the crest of a social wave that would soon break on the shores of change.

All of Tucson's young eventually grow to embark on leisurely Volvo rides to Portland, an age-old custom which is outlined in the Tucsonan books of law. As an Unbearable Californian, I was expressly forbidden from participating in this ritualistic exodus, and was forced to watch my friends pack up their dusty Southwestern lives to reinvent themselves as organic tea baristas, or artisanal doughnut makers, or whatever else people make careers out of in Portland - so with a tear on my collar and a tiny, shiny shred of my own red heart left buried behind in the Sonoran desert, I headed east instead.

You might imagine that as a child of America's Great Vapid West, I could easily elect to dismiss -or even resent- the Eastern coast of the country. What's living in the Big Apple to mountain men? Tiny one-way streets, abusive public odors, entire neighborhoods composed of burglars, Loud Fucking Trains, and people who possess the fashion sense of Karl Lagerfeld, but the social graces of Oscar the Grouch. Sure, it sounds like a bummer, but somehow the end justifies the means, and some wafting, beckoning swath of cartoon pie steam dragged me by the nose all the way out to my bug-ridden bed in the City That Never Sleeps.

"New Yorker" is a loose term, as anybody you meet here is as likely to have lived here for 20 years as they are to be visiting a cousin for two weeks before they go back to Boston, but New Yorkers all share one similar characteristic, regardless of tenure - they sure have alot of silly ideas about where I came from. I'm not a New Yorker, and though I do love this great city of opportunity, I figured I'd go ahead and give a little back. I'm gonna review New York City. Objectively, of course.