Vincent Brown’s Journal and Photography

Archives for December, 2005

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12/12/2005 | Asides | No Comments

On Dec. 5, I hung out with four of the greatest people I’ve met in a long time. This is the story of how we got together to celebrate the visit of a long-time friend, the going away of a new friend, and general merriment on a single, snowy night in Philadelphia.

It was a couple months ago when Matt Stephens (matteo) told me he’d be in my town for a siminar on webdesign. I’ve known Matt for roughly 5 years, from working together on the large community art site, deviantART.com. Matt was a co-founder of deviantART along with Scott Jarkoff, whom I met this past summer at the 2005 deviantART Summit, in Hollywood, CA.

This night was almost missed however, Matt forgot to give me his cellphone number, so when he got into Philly, I had no way to get in touch with him. Therein lies the power of the INTERNETS. Matt contact me on AOL Instant Messenger, while at his siminar and we exchanged info and made plans to get together early evening. After that, I made haste to get other Philly Deviants involved in this get together… we got three great women to join us.

The forcasted weather for the night called for a big snow storm, the first accumulating snow for Philadelphia this winter. Already, I was faced with some hesitation to go out. My car handles terribly in adverse conditions, but knowing this full well, I sucked it up and took the chance to meet a perfect stranger, whom I’ve been calling a friend for over 5 years. When I left the house, everything was clear and the prospect of a “Winter Storm” was not weighing much into my decission process. By the time I reached Matt’s hotel and found a place to park, the snow had just started falling (albeit, not hard). I walked towards the lobby, with cell phone in hand, calling Matt to let him know I was here. Out of the corner of my eye, I see this character that looked ALMOST exactly like the picture I’ve seen many times, of Matt Stephens… the call connects, and I hear “hey man” on the other end. I look around a pillar and see that same character from before, on his cellphone, with a devilish grin ons his face. He sees me and we run to each other like in one of those cheesy romance flicks.

From Matt’s hotel, we set out to find a bar, restaurant or whatever, so we can watch the heavily talked about Monday night Eagles (NFL Football) game. We stumbled upon Bookbinders restaurant on 2nd and Walnut in the Society Hill section of Philadelphia. It was the perfect venue… we headed straight for the bar which had two flat screen LCD tv’s, plenty of booz, and the food wasn’t bad either (I ordered a $10 Baked Crab Cake). For the first hour and change, we were entertained by sports highlights on ESPN, each others company and the various characters making their way to the bar. For every unique sight, or sound, we both looked at each other and just laughed. We talked about this and that, mostly life, what both of us are doing post-deviantART and our plans for the future. Mine being, gun running or being a succesful Hollywood agent.

We were later joined by Michelle (Cherriebomb), then Gracie (UnfetteredGrace), and Steph (Steph9668) whom I had to trek through a foot of snow, and escort back to our location.

All in all, I had a blast… I enjoyed the company of everyone I was with that night and wish it didn’t have to end. But it did. Matt went back to texas, Michelle rode her bike home (in the snow), Steph dropped me off at my car and went home (now she’s going to Paris), and Gracie found her way home as well.