Philadelphia, Meet Your Future

Rocky is an embarrassment like the Geno's cheesesteak controversy, which, by the way, Philebrity.com was the first to break (albeit basically accidentally), when Joey a year ago noticed the sign instructing patrons to order in English and posted a cell phone picture on his website, saying: "Honestly, guys, the cop fetish is cute and all, and, hell, I'm willing to roll with just about anything for the finest whiz-wit on the planet, but this smacks of something not very nice at all. … Besides, how many people actually roll up on the sandwich window and start speaking Sudanese and shit?" (Of the cheesesteak incident, Joey will tell me: "I just felt like more and more Geno's was, like, wrapping itself in this cloak of authoritarianism. … This guy's fetishized authority, he's fetishized Americanism, and he's worked it into his business plan, which I think is really unseemly. There should be no viewpoint of a cheesesteak. It should not have a political persuasion.")

After an introduction by one of the ­musicians — I learn later that some of them are the group the Espers, who apparently live in a compound in Fishtown — the show starts.

You no doubt want to know about the movie. Unfortunately, I can't explain much, because it's too dark in the theater for me to take notes, and honestly, I'm too disturbed to do anything but watch. The opening scene features Valerie, an attractive teenage girl, rubbing a teardrop pearl earring over her body. I look over at Joey and Ruth, sitting two rows behind me, and realize Joey's wearing the same outfit he was the last time I saw him: white button-down shirt buttoned almost to the top, gathering slightly over his slight gut; black Wrangler jeans; green socks; Wallabee shoes. He and Ruth watch intently as the screen flashes quickly from one scene to another, the live score disconcertingly haunting: a weasel with something in its mouth; bleeding on a daisy; a grandmother who's probably 35 and an albino; partially clothed Euro chicks making out in a stream, sticking fish down their nightgowns; a ­hideous-looking man with a monster face and a mouth full of fangs; a most frightening religious figure preaching about virginity to a mass of white-clothed young girls; a freak in a black cloak carrying around a bichon frise; your token vampires; a naked man doing back flips; writhing chickens; more Euro tittage. At one point Valerie, according to the subtitles, declares: "The weasel is my father."

As we're walking out, I have a headache and feel like I've just survived an intense acid trip.

"Amazing," says Ruth.

"Awesome," says Sweeney.