Between the Tigris and Euphrates

(this a page from the landlords book. labeled for your convenience. )

(That’s Moser Mark talking to Guza. I won’t even begin to try to name everyone else in this one but shout out to the lost old man with the beard and nemel’s pants)

Records indicate this is the summer of 1997.

The location is the Philadelphia Museum of Art. (where the Landlords book is currently on exhibit)

This is Esher’s race, the Bricklayer one- you had to pick up a pile of bricks at each stop, and shove them in your bag, then you had to knock out a cab driver before Esher would sign your sheet. Maybe that last part is exaggerated slightly.

New York Crew came down and represented as you can tell.

Maybe Boston cats were at this one too.

Records further indicate the start of this race being especially hectic.

There’s a complicated system of traffic lights leading up to the Museum off the Parkway, so there’s always cars moving through.

We all stood around waiting for a minute and then someone yelled “Go!”
50 people went fast directly into traffic, 95% without looking.
No one got hit, but traffic was halted as irate drivers stomped on their brakes and cursed out their windows.
This was fast becoming standard starting procedure for many Philly messenger races.

(While we were talking about messenger races, no matter what some loser and their dad tell you-Me and Nemel won the highly disputed art museum/relay/scavenger race a year later, and were discharged on an odd technicality. There definitely should be an * in the record books for those standings. We deserved that kryptonite lock and 1st generation REload bag-damnit.)

(I’ll dig up some other material later-there’s more about this time period in the Landlords Book.)