The best stories are always true, so let me start this story with Three Fingered Bill. Bill is a career doorman at Dirty Franks and he has -- guess how many? -- fingers on his right hand. You'd never notice it. And the only reason I noticed his fingership is because his name is Three Fingered Bill. And damned if he don't have three fingers, one a thumb, and damned if they don't look like long tapering alien tentacles. Better that you get that "Three Fingered" Bill shit out of the way before the creepy handshake
The story starts with him because he was drunk, of course, of course, over most of the course of the July 4th weeekend where I met him Sunday afternoon at Dirty Frank's after I had finished a day doing walking tours of historic Philadelphia. That's what I do these days to make money. I show people Philadelphia. Is that a good career move? DUH-Uh! And I love it. I'm good at it. And I get to fuck with people. Including 3FB. The reason I mention that Bill was drunk was because he mentioned it loudly to everyone in the bar at least seven or eight times.
It's quite possible that I used the words "Fuck you, you fuckin'n fuck," in our conversation. Three Fingered Bill -- did I mention that he's got a beautiful five fingered daughter? -- had exactly the right prop at exactly the right moment What you see on my chest is my new tourism slogan: "Welcome to Philadelphia! You fuck"
I love being from Philadelphia. It is my ethnicity. I love this city like a religion I can't explain. But allow me to try. Philadelphians run deep. As many of the swells who have stubbed their big toe on a Philadelphia "FYYFF!" verdict can tell you. We can be your best friends, but we're always ready to go all al Queda on your sorry ass.
So I dress up in Colonial garb and I walk around Philadelphia like Ben Franklin in a toga. And I tell the truth as I know it, plus jokes. It's a lot of fun. Especially when it's not a hundred degrees. "Welcome to Philadelphia!" is my opening line. And it always works. FYYFF happens, but not while I'm around. Not on my tours. I just like the knowing. The "knowing" is the thrill. I know what we got. I was born in Pennsylvania Hospital, America's first hospital, founded by Benjamin Franklin, for chrissakes, and yet because I spent 15 years in Narberth between the ages of five and twenty, I am suspect. Am I a true Philadelphian?
Am I Philadelphia enough?
Only a Philadelphian would understand the neighborhood insult. Benjamin Franklin, after all, was a newbie on the lam from Boston. Challenging a Philadelphian about where he or she was born, bred, schooled "hopefully by the good sisters", went to college, "either St. Joes or Temple" is an exercise in open heart surgery. I wasn't smart enough to get into Penn; I bless myself while driving west on Lancaster Avenue before spitting as I pass Villanova. I don't eat at either Pat's or Geno's but I love them both. Three o'clock Saturday night turned Sunday morning. What an experience. Dawn breaks. Joey Vento hoses down the sidewalk. Clark DeLeon takes a photograph. Modified haiku, or what?
Haven't I been here before.
Always.
I know where I come from. I know what I know. My name is Clark DeLeon and I'm a Phila-fuckin'-delphia tour guide. Can you handle that? Contact me:
