Tales of the PPA
Author: Gtown Monkey
So the dreaded Philadelphia Parking Authority
is now the star of it's own cable show...
and it's really quite amusing. Parking Wars
has been produced since 2001 in different cities.
This past summer it was Philly's turn.
It aires on A&E and Comcast ON-DEMAND.
Watching Parking Wars reminded me of
some of my own totally random
Parking Authority misadventures...
this was just this past monday-
the second broken meter The Count and I
encountered on the same block.
unfortunately we didn't record our silly conversation
with 3 PPA enforcement officers following this.
"Ty gets the Boot"
(we were shooting something else entirely
and this just happened. Cira '02 or '03)
Sorry Ty, the only bologna you'll find in prison is the tubular variety (oh no I didn't!). I should've known this "incident" was gonna turn into an "Adventures of…" sorta thing!
haha...i dont think ty is riding around in that bucket anymore...
I should point out that this was not Ty's car...
just something happening on the street at the
time.
So he wasn't really gonna give these guys free lumber???
I caught part of that Parking show with the Rev. a while back... it was kind of amazing how fired up were getting at these @#$!%s and their condescending attitudes. I don't know how it works in Philly, but out here the parking regs are basically "poor people tax"... all the areas with the densest parking and the most inane restrictions are also the most impoverished.
But I guess they haven't learned G-Town's trick -- any place is a legitimate parking spot if you just put on your blinkers!
that wasnt ty's car?? lol
thats hilarious. or are you doing some PR spin here? what's the word, gtown?
I should prob post the whole 10m
or so. It's sort of funny, I guess.
I wanted to spare you all. It was in
the morning, a few hours before
call time on Trading Spaces
which was shooting somewhere out
near Collegeville, PA
(yes, Ink- the same)
I had been shooting a lot of
behind-the-scenes stuff at the time
to pitch the network a BTS show...
(an idea which they or Banyan essential
stole two years later and did a hokey
version of)
... we were shooting Ty salvaging good
timber from a dumpster in
Art Museum -hood, when we stumbled
across the PPA booting a car.
It's a credit to Ty's wacky
improving and general madness.
If anyone wants to see the rest,
I'll repost the whole segment.
This show is like crack.
things i learned so far:
1) this makes the city look terrible, and the sting is that all the money from tickets goes to the state.
2) 15 years with the PPA gets you a pension.
3) while it seems impossible to get a ticket rescinded by a metermaid, it IS possible to get a car dropped from the tow truck.
4) metermaids eat their young
gtown... i would dig seeing the rest of this.
this really is proof that after the state takeover of the "corrupt PPA" is no better than it ever was.
> This show is like crack.
In that it's cheap, it stinks, and it has long-term debilitating side effects.
I like the show...
it amusing and at times
totally infuriating. I can't
get my better half to watch-
Something about 'she'd rather
chew her arm off'...
so, I guess it's safe to say that
it's not for everybody.
I think it's a pretty even balance
of stupid "citizens" commiting
irresponsible parking offenses
and tales of the hand of the man.