So, early Friday evening, our fearless editor found himself with a just-cancelled after-work appointment and nowhere to go. I was on my bike and in Northern Liberties, so I stopped into 700 to grab a quick beer, check the Phils score, and see what I was gonna do next. Checking Facebook on my phone, I noticed my friend Carrie’s status:

dIning outside at Rouge, Rittenhouse Square is lovely. Arthur Kade, please stop by. cocktails on me!

I immediately commented: “That’s so crazy I might just do it.” It wasn’t crazy, of course. I hadn’t seen Carrie in a few months, I had nowhere to be for at least a few hours, and while Rouge is not necessarily my scene, per se, it was a gorgeous early summer evening, perfect for a bike ride, and so I pointed my Raleigh southwest. When I got there, there was no Kade (I expected as much), but there was Carrie and her friend Josh. They’d already eaten so I proceeded to get drunk with them. Very drunk, and fairly quickly. It had been a long week.

As the sun went down and evening settled on the square, we got to know our al fresco neighbors: Carrie swore the nice couple next to us was interested in pouring venture capital into Philebrity, which made me almost snarf my Bloody, and to our other side were some nice exchange students, and everywhere, everwhere, poodles. You know, Rouge is kind of identified, I think, as this snooty kind of place, but really, it’s pretty democratic. While Carrie smoked a cigarette in the alley, I ran into a publicist named, oddly, Aly, and it was here that, at the dark end of the street, Arthur Kade suddenly appeared. Carrie’s Facebook Arthur Kade rain dance had worked. Apparently, all you have to do to get him to show up somewhere is summon him on The Book of Faces and say that you’re buying. It’s this, and only this, I hope, that Kade and I have in common.

Aly and Carrie nearly fell over themselves to introduce the two of us, and the next thing I knew, I was shaking hands with the man. All along, I’d had a sneaking suspicion he was real. But here’s the thing: I meet people that are written about on this site all the time, and to be honest, usually, I don’t care. Because it’s work. It’s just work. And right now, in that moment, I most definitely was not working. I said hello, shook hands, and pretty much immediately went back to the conversation I was in when Kade appeared, peacock-like, as if he were the Mayor of Rittenhouse and I was some visiting foreign dignitary. I had no probing questions. I had no “Love your work!”-type quips. If memory serves, all I did have was a four-Bloody Mary buzz and a clove cigarette, and I still have no idea where the hell that came from.

But Arthur remembered it this way:

When I arrived at Rouge, I was introduced to a local blogger who is obsessed with me [1], named Joey Sweeney from Philebrity (Taller than I expected although he looks like a cartoon character from Charlie Brown)[2], and shook his hand then blew him off. I was then approached by a local writer who said “I am in awe of you” [3], who seemed like a nice red-headed 6 [4], so I told her I had to go back to my friend’s table to chill out to get away rather than being a dick and telling her to go away [5]. I talked with some friends and then we decided to go to The Mogul Room at G to party and ended the night “Kade Style” [6]with drinks and pictures.

Mind if I parse?

1. If by “obsessed,” you mean “impatiently watching the clock tick down until the moment when local cyberspace finds a new Pet Rock,” then indeed, I am the picture of obsessed. I fucking invented you, bitch! Actually, that’s not fair: G-N Kang invented you, but can’t have anything to do with you now because it would violate the terms of her contract with the Lingerie Football League. Or at least that’s the rumor going around.

2. In the sexless indie world I travel in, being compared to a Peanuts character is akin to having someone in the straight world tell you that you look like that guy from Twilight. In which case, I thank you for the compliment.

3. My friend Carrie did this, and I assure you, she was taking the piss.

4. But oddly, your scale is pretty spot-on. Carrie really is a very solid 6.

5. I witnessed none of this.

6. “Ending the night ‘Kade Style’” might just be the best euphemism for doing cocaine I’ve ever heard.

So what have we learned here? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’m sorry, Philadelphia. This story has no moral. In fact, I’m not even completely sure that any of it happened. Waiter, another Bloody please.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 15th, 2009 at 12:04 pm.