Will Cheese Wiz Personal Lube Stop Philadelphia From Being Itself?

Apparently an adult entertainment company is putting cheese wiz in lube to "stop" Philadelphians from climbing poles on Sunday

On Sunday, the Philadelphia Eagles are going to win the Super Bowl, and a bunch of people are going to climb every pole in this city that they can. The city keeps saying they don’t want people to do that, but that just eggs them on. 

To “stop” them, the city has been putting grease all over the poles to ostensibly keep people from being able to climb up the poles and risking injury. (To property, that is. The city/the police do not care about your body.)

In an effort to, I don’t know, prevent/entice people to climb the poles, an adult entertainment company is sending gallons of personal lubricant that’s mixed with cheese wiz to Philadelphia.

Every now and then I get a PR email that has nothing to do with any beat I’ve ever covered. I have no idea what I ever wrote about that would make them think this is in my usual coverage area, but here we are, with an email in my inbox with the subject: “Gallons of lube en route to Philly for Super Bowl celebrations”

Here’s the beginning of the email:

Hi - right now the city of Philadelphia is greasing its light poles as a preliminary public safety measure to deter zealous, raucous people from climbing them should the Eagles win the Super Bowl on Sunday.

CamSoda - an adult entertainment company - is sending a truck filled with (28) 55-gallon drums containing lube (that’s 1,540 gallons to be exact) to protect Eagles fans from themselves when they - potentially - take to the streets to celebrate the Eagle's victory on Sunday night. Each drum will be filled with 75% lube and 25% wiz.

“Potentially.” Hahaha. Dude thinks he knows us.

I was about to delete the email until I got to the end.

25% wiz? Like … cheese?

Here’s a quote from Daryn Parker, the vice president of CamSoda, the company sending the cheese lube:

“Here at CamSoda, we know the people of Philly love the Eagles, cheesesteaks, and wiz. We wanted to lend a helping hand to the Philly fanatics – who have been known to take to the streets to celebrate a huge sports victory – including dangerously scaling light poles. To protect raucous Eagles fans against themselves, we wanted to hand deliver a truck full of lube – mixed with some delicious wiz – to grease the light poles in and around the city with. Lube proves more difficult to scale than Crisco. And the smell of wiz is just…yum.”

Alright, bro. Do you want us to climb the poles or not?

“Don’t climb the poles! You’ll get hurt. So, to keep you off of these poles we’re greasing them up to make it even more dangerous and, also, we’re going to put a little snack on there that you love so much to make sure you stay away.”

This has to be a psyop. I’m not sure how or who benefits from it, but I refuse to believe that this was pitched around a conference room table and decided in good faith. I’m not sure who the mark is. I’m not sure who the benefactor is. But something smells off, and it’s not just lube wiz.

They even sent me a picture of an obviously fake tub of this shit, which comes with a little spatula to scrape it onto the poles.

Non stick? I’d certainly hope so.

At this point, my questions went beyond hypothetical, and I had to respond.

Here’s the email I sent back to Brett, their marketing person who sent me the email:

Hey Brett. Is this legit? I only ask because the image you included seems to be just text superimposed onto a stock image of a barrel.

Also, why cheese wiz? I don't understand how adding something "delicious" that you admit Philadelphians can't refuse, would keep them away. Is the goal to keep them off the poles or on the poles? Do you want them to lick it instead of climb them?

Please answer as soon as you can. Thank you.

While I waited for him to respond, I thought about the whole pole climbing thing in the first place.

It supposedly started here when the Phils lost to the Yankees in the 2009 World Series. Everyone who’s ever been to Philadelphia or knows someone from Philadelphia knows that Philadelphians are equal parts joy and misery. Excitement and anger. Is climbing the poles a protest? A celebration? Yes. Do we do it when we win or lose? Yes.

Either way, the poles on Sunday are going to be climbed, because now it’s a Whole Thing where guys need to do it.

Journalist David Farrier even referenced the phenomenon on a recent podcast about sandwiches, where he tried the cheesesteaks at Pat’s and Geno’s (the two worst places to get them in the city). He didn’t really understand why this was happening (the Phillies were in the World Series again), so he thought it was just a thing that the freakish Philadelphians did on a regular basis.

Here’s what he said:

“There’s also something else very American that happened. When I went there to record this episode, there’d been a big win for their local sports team, and people were on the streets. And everyone kept saying, ‘They’re greasing the poles. They’re greasing the poles.’ And what the police do is, they put, like, Vaseline on the poles. […] They were greasing up the poles because people climb the poles in Philly. That’s what they do. Like streetlights. Any poles. So when there’s a big game in Philly – from what they told me, I might be wrong about this, the police go out and just Vaseline all the poles so that Philadelphians can’t climb them.”

The co-host, Monica Padman, chimed in and said, “Wow, that is so specific to Philly!” before later in the episode saying she had never been here.

The Philly stereotypes from outsiders tend to irk me, but I’ll move on.

The whole thing of preventing people from climbing the poles is pretty much the biggest wink-wink, faux-enforcement there is. They know people are going to climb it. If they didn’t think people were capable of doing it, they wouldn’t have an annual event in South Philly where people climb a greased up pole to get deli meats etc. They do this right in front of a mural of the biggest cop this city has ever seen, former mayor Frank Rizzo.

The way this video describes the event as a “ritual” pretty much ices the fact that, like it or not, Philadelphia is stuck with the pole climbing stereotype now, whether you think it’s obnoxious or not. It’s up there with throwing batteries at Santa and all of the other violent behavior the people of this city engage in on a regular basis.

So I do get why CamSoda sent me this I guess. I am a writer in Philadelphia, therefore I should know what I’m up against (literally) when I inevitably decide to climb a pole. They know my favorite food is, by city ordinance, cheese wiz. And they might even know I’ve written about questionable liquid on the city streets before.

I still have question for CamSoda. Firstly, CamSoda, are you on the side of the police or are you on the side of the people? Because you sure as hell can’t be both.

But my real question to CamSoda is: If this is real (and I have my doubts), what exactly is the end-goal? Do you want people to climb the poles or not? Or, is it that, knowing they will climb the poles regardless of what you cover them with, the climbers will descend back to the streets, and their friends will ask “What’s that you’re covered in?” and they will thoughtfully wipe their shirt, lick their finger, look up and to the right to really give it a lot of thought, and say, “I think that’s CamSoda personal lubricant with … cheese wiz. I’d say about 20% cheese wiz, 25% max.”

I’ll see you all on Broad Street on Sunday. Don’t touch me if you’re covered in lube and cheese.

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Today’s Snakes and Sparklers musical guest is Steady Hands, with a song about climbing the poles. Go Birds.

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