You're reading about an eleven-day trip that I recently took with my terrific friend Amber to Las Vegas, Philadelphia and New York. Before you read about Day 3, you might want to read about Day 1 and Day 2.
Thursday, May 24, 2018
Checking out of the Excalibur Hotel in Vegas turned out to be not much easier than checking in but we were somehow outta there and heading for the airport by 9:30 AM, just like it said on my schedule. We grabbed a bit o' breakfast at the terminal, hopped on an American Airlines flight for Philadelphia, landed, got a cab and were at the Philadelphia Marriott by 8 PM.
It's a very nice, well-run hotel though our bathroom had the same, admittedly-minor problem that the Excalibur had and that's been true of just about every hotel I've been in for the last few years. Why are folks who design showers so unaware that people who take showers need someplace to put their bar of soap, their little bottle of shampoo, their little bottle of conditioner, etc.? The hotel even supplies versions of these little condiments for your scalp but rarely gives you a place to have them at the ready when you're wet and naked and have soap in your eyes and you need to grope for them. Our hotel in New York would turn out to have the same failing.
Note To Every Hotel In The World: They sell these at WalMart, they sell these at KMart, they sell them at Target, they sell them everywhere and they cost under $20 and can be installed in under three seconds. I do not want your tiny soaps and your tiny bottles of lotion. I can bring my own big soap and my own travel size potions and I need someplace to put them, whereas I really can't pack my own shower caddy. Thank you.
My feet weren't up for a lot of walking that night in Philadelphia so we had dinner at a Maggiano's across the street. I'm not usually fond of Italian food as prepared by chain restaurants but Maggiano's is awfully good, especially when it's right across the street and your feet hurt.
One disappointment today. Next Wednesday in New York, I was supposed to record my second appearance on Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. The first one (which you can hear here) was done with me in Los Angeles and Gilbert in Manhattan along with his co-host, Frank Santopadre. But Gilbert's wife Dara e-mailed me with more apologies than necessary that Gilbert had to go do a job out of town that week…so we'll have to do an in-person show another time, hopefully soon.
Have I explained why we went to Philadelphia? I'm a member of the National Cartoonists Society and every year on or around the Memorial Day weekend, the NCS holds its annual get-together, which used to always be in New York but now rotates around the United States. It's called the Reuben Weekend because its centerpiece is a fancy, black-tie banquet where cartoonists in formal wear present awards to one another and one person wins the society's highest honor, the Reuben Award. There are also parties and seminars and shop talk and an awful lot of cartooning camaraderie. And we're also here for another reason: To eat.
Last September when we were in Baltimore for the Baltimore Comic-Con, Amber and I and our pal Marv Wolfman made a one-day train trip to Philly to do some sightseeing, to see our pal Frank Ferrante in a play and to lunch at the Reading Terminal Market. As I explained here, the Reading Terminal Market may well be my favorite place to eat in this country. Here's another little video tour of the place for those of you into Serious Food Porn…
A few weeks later, Amber and I were at the New York Comic-Con and I ran into Bill Morrison, who is both the new editor of MAD and the current prez of the NCS. Bill told me he'd just signed the deal for the 2018 Reuben Weekend to be in Philadelphia. I instantly thought, "Gee, that would be an opportunity to eat again at the Reading Terminal Market." Then I thought how silly it would be to go all that way and spend all that money just to have a couple of great lunches.
I was thinking that as Bill said, "We're going to be at the Philadelphia Marriott."
I asked, "The Philadelphia Marriott that's directly across the street from the Reading Terminal Market?" He said yes and I said, "Amber and I will be there." Tune in tomorrow to hear how we were there along with Bill, Sergio Aragonés, Tom Richmond, Mike Peters, Sam Viviano and dozens of other fine cartoonists, plus the (now, sadly) late Nick Meglin. One of my last memories of Nick is showing him around the Reading Terminal Market.