That's what we've been tryin' to tell ya

This isn't "news" to those who know, but it's a newsflash to everyone who stops by my carriage looking for Pat's and Geno's in search of an "authentic" Philly cheesesteak.

From today's philly.com:

CHEEZ WHIZ IS OVERRATED FOR CHEESESTEAKS

A recent Philly.com poll asked, "What cheese belongs on a cheesesteak?" and Whiz finished third. American edged out provolone after more than 5,700 votes were cast.

Even Geno's owner Joey Vento, 68, downplays Whiz. "To be honest with you, I've never eaten Cheez Whiz, and I'm the owner," he said. " . . . We always recommend the provolone. . . . That's the real cheese."

A representative from the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation came to address our company at our annual meeting. She encouraged us, in our talking up our fine city, to encourage people to eat their cheesesteaks "the right way": "Whiz wit". This ridiculous suggestion was met with a chorus of boos from lifelong Philadelphians.

The cheesesteak was invented in 1932. Guess what? There was no Cheez Whiz. Not until the 1950s. Cheez Whiz cannot be historically correct on a cheesesteak, and truth be told, runs last among cheese preferences, except at those two famous institutions at 9th and Passyunk: Pat's and Geno's.

Originally, the Philly steak sandwich, invented by his Uncle Pat in the early 1930s, he said, had no cheese.

By and by, cheese was introduced. "Customers got tired of eating with or without onions, just like my Uncle Pat got tired of eating hot dogs," Frank Jr. said.

American or sharp provolone? was the original debate, he said.

In the mid 1950s - not long after Chttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifheez Whiz hit the market - his father, Frank Sr., began keeping some by the grill, and telling customers to try it.

"It worked well, it tasted good. . . . It caught on," Frank Jr. said.

Other places started "impostoring us," he said.

How's that for some history? (There's more in the full article.) And the fine folks at the GPTMC want tour guides to be licensed because supposedly WE don't know Philadelphia history.

So, to reiterate what I've been telling tourists who ask for a while. Don't let anyone bully you into ordering a cheesesteak "Whiz wit." Unless you like neon goo. Get your provolone or American if you prefer.

He's holding on to the horse, at least!

He's holding on to the horse, at least!
Originally uploaded by amboo who?

I think the photographer's title says it all.

Carrot 2008 Campaign

Take the Bush-McCain challenge, sponsored by MoveOn. Then continue to the McCain-Carrot challenge.

The carrot compares favorably on all issues except for "which candidate for president would best be able to protect us from Percherons?"

Hotel des Invalides, The Fifth of May, 2000

HÔTEL DES INVALIDES, THE FIFTH OF MAY

Beneath the domed cage the Italian boy flutters
Crashing into me as he impatiently flaps
Trying to fly from this cold mausoleum

The man with the medals
From some lost colony
Looms overhead and commands the unwilling subordinate,
Young man, take off your hat,

Don’t you know you’re in a
Place where there is
Still a Napoleon?

And the Family flocks around
Beneath our feet
Laying wreaths at his feet
The man who would be minister is even there
High priest at the altar of bees and violets

His wife would like to leave
(She’s an agnostic, after all.)
But his gesture to bade her stay echoes,

Don’t you know
You’re in a place where
There is still a Napoleon?

And the trumpets echo their eternal refrain
And the drum rolls out its knell
And the echoes of the echoes
Repeat that War is Hell

For they know as they have known
As the centuries have passed
And funeral marches of tourists circling from their chariots
Cannot fathom the heroic mystery

Don’t they know they’re
In a place where there is still a
Napoleon?

And I smile through the Beethoven inside me
I am translating Shelley into French
Singing Mon nom est Ozymandias,

Roi des rois

Surveillez mes oeuvres, vous les puissants
Et désesperez-vous...

And the tourist-herd despairs me--
They do not know that this is also still a place
Where there is a Ferdinand Foch
Who, after the August guns had fallen silent
Four score ago, so trenchantly
Told him who loved War to

Rest
In
Peace

In
Æternum

For the world could do without that place
Where there has always been a Napoleon
Before which the Führer bowed
And still the leaders follow the Pied Piper’s fife and drum.

Outside
They wait in wheelchairs
For the Princess Napoleon
To annoint them with baubles legion

He would shake her hand
If he had one

In the last days of what was supposed to be the last war
He pulled the pin
But the innocents stayed his hand
And his humanity has mutilated him
He is far from the last in a long bleeding line
He is a coup de canon
That flattens me
And silences them all

Don’t you know
We’re in a world
Where there is still a Napoleon?

Maybe it was the big fancy truck...

Teddy in his sleek gooseneck trailer.


What makes us so blind that we cannot see what is right in front of us? Why do we let our prejudices and our past color that which stands before us, bright as day, bright as a white horse whose ancestors carried knights and kings?

I know that I spend an awful lot of time on this blog complaining about stupid things people say about me and the carriage horses, but sometimes they're just so unbelievably, entertainingly stupid they deserve to be retold here.

A couple of weekends ago, 76 Carriage horse Mike, fellow driver Kelly, Uncle Bill and I had a wedding to do in extreme South Philly. The job was too far for Mike to walk with the carriage, so he walked downtown to work, did a nice half hour tour for a lovely woman from Australia, and then was loaded on the gooseneck trailer for a short ride down to Oregon Avenue. Anyone who has ever been to South Philly knows that finding a place to park is no easy task, and it is even more difficult with a 30-foot horse trailer. So, we finally found a place near 10th and Bigler, right near Citizen's Bank Park (the Phillies were in town that afternoon).

We had the rear doors and tailgate down once the carriage had been unloaded and were re-harnessing Mike inside.

A couple of guys from the neighborhood pull up in a pick-up truck and strike up a conversation with Uncle Bill.

"That's a beautiful horse," they say, pausing to appropriately admire Mike's 2000 pounds of Percheron perfection. "So beautiful. Gorgeous. Very well taken care of."

Uncle Bill agrees. "Oh, very well taken care of."

They continue. "Yeah, not like those carriage horses you see downtown."

Oh, the look on their faces when they were told that Mike, the consumate carriage horse, had just come from work at 5th and Chestnut. Disbelief. Shock. And then, embarrassment. Humility.

And then they hit the accelerator.