While boxy CRT and LCD monitors made clear that their presidential candidate was headed for a loss Tuesday night, the crowd at famous Philly dive bar Dirty Frank’s turned their night around by turning the jukebox up.
Queue: The Streetbeater, Sanford & Son
As CNN showed Trump casually sweeping the swing states, the Sanford & Son theme song pulled Boomers and Gen X-ers disappearing into their cups onto the dance floor. A green Conversed man wearing a “Bring on the Matriarchy” tee stopped looking at the screen and stepped into a lo-fi tap dance routine.
Queue: Gimme Shelter, The Rolling Stones
South Philly native Dan “Butch” Lanzilloti wasn’t watching either. He was outside his lifelong pub taping a plastic girl named “Dolly” to the back of his truck while the Rolling Stones’ warning of “rape, murder,” rang out from the bar’s open windows.
“So, are you a Trump supporter?” I asked the dude decked out in red, white and blue.
“No!” he cried.
“Are you kidding me? I’m from the neighborhood, born and raised. I’m an artist. And a landlord — hey, you might be my tenant!”
Butch used to hang out at Dirty Frank’s in the ‘80s, but he doesn’t remember much of it: “Honey, I was high as the Georgia pines” back then. He rarely comes out anymore, only for special occasions, like election night, even though the bartender is his “best friend.”
Queue: Don’t Look Back In Anger, Oasis
Butch said he voted for Kamala Harris “because women get the job done.”
“I grew up with a single mother. She made sure there was food on the table. My father made sure there was food in the bowl. For his dogs.” The main issue that bothers him, he said, is abortion. He worries about the government barring his niece — “When she meets her maker, that’s when she’ll be judged” — and other women from birth control measures. “My hand has been with me for a long time, and never once has it complained or said no. [Banning abortion] would be like Trump saying I can’t use my hand anymore!”
If Trump wins, Butch said, “I don’t wanna be here when the curtain drops.”
“My father has a house in Mexico,” he recalled. Despite his neighborhood pride, Butch would “leave tomorrow.”
Besides neighborhood pride, “I have nothing holding me here. All I’ve got is one houseplant,” he said. “I just have no sense of direction.”
Queue: Crippling Self Doubt And A General Lack Of Confidence, Courtney Barnett
Back inside the bar, a smashed 37-year-old veteran was hitting on my friend by telling her about his latest of two divorces.
“I voted for Kamala even though I don’t like her because I served the orange guy for six months and he shit all over our military,” he said. He showed us a tattoo of a rainbow flag with the number “22” in place of stars. Twenty-two veterans kill themselves everyday, he told us, but the inking was a tribute to one of his friends who took his own life after getting outed by other servicemen.
“I lost my give a shit factor long ago. I guess when I lost my friend. We’re not gonna win no matter what.”
Queue: I Melt with You, Modern English
By 11 p.m., it was clear that Trump was taking America home with him. But while my 20-something friends watching The New York Times’ needles sunk into despair, a group of 50-year-old women were still rallying.
“All that matters is this moment!” one woman drawled while Modern English sang “There’s nothing you and I won’t do, I’ll stop the world and melt with you.”
One woman named Maya, an attorney and sex worker, said the state of our nation comes down to “who do we wanna be?”
“I don’t wanna be a narcissist. I don’t wanna disconnect from humanity. I don’t wanna not care about the people around me,” she said.
“I have two kids that I always take with me to the polls to vote. Today I told them that I’ve cried twice in the polls — the first time when my oldest was in my belly and I voted for Obama.” She was crying because she was voting for someone who looked like her son would. “Today, I told them, I voted for someone who looked like me.”
“Regardless of whatever else happens, that was an experience for me. That’s what it was about for me.”
Maya added: “I love the Philly saying, ‘Fuck around and find out.’ We need them to be emboldened. I wish a racist would step up to me. Because at the end of the day, that’s what we need to do — to step up.”
Queue: Do You, Spoon
While the crowd danced around what was playing out on CNN, one of my friends was having a nervous breakdown.
“I knew I shouldn’t have voted for Kamala,” she said. She had arranged a vote swap: She voted for Harris in Pennsylvania in exchange for her family voting third party in their respective liberal leading states. Now she felt like her voice — as a protester of U.S.-fueled genocide and Harris’ hawkish foreign policy approach — had been squashed.
As she poured over her phone, comforting herself with online memes, a group of women looked through the Jukebox for their next song.
One woman in a shirt saying, “Vote like your ancestors died for it,” who had been swaying in place the whole night, clapped her hands in the air above her. I couldn’t tell if she was dancing or praying for future generations.
A playlist from the night for anyone looking some help surviving.
