Category Archives: Uncategorized
Hot Memorial Day action
Monday was Memorial Day, of course, but it was also Mrs. Carpetbagger’s birthday. A rather awkward and confusing mix. I told her that, after a great deal of effort on my part, I had arranged for Lawrenceville to throw a parade in honor of the day. I told her that the theme was going to be rather solemn, but it was a parade, none the less. She wasn’t having it.
It was near 90 degrees with plenty of humidity, and we were ready to take on the day. Truth was, Pittsburgh was focusing most of its attention on Lawrenceville this Memorial Day. As home to the Allegheny Cemetery and the Arsenal property, it makes sense. L’ville has done a parade every year on Memorial Day. Usually, it’s a 5-minute-long affair. This year, they did it up right. We even had a major dignitary like State Auditor General Jack Wagner. That’s right, haters, we got the general of all auditors. The one with all the stars on his shoulder whom all other auditors salute and march into audits for. Okay, that part’s not actually true, but when it comes to auditors, Jack is the Bomb!
So, the parade was much longer this year. Aaaaand, it was still kind of lame. Okay, a few points of parade etiquette here:
1.) Love the firefighter bagpipes leading the way. No problem here. This is a strong lead, with military color guard behind. And, may I say, Mrs. Bagger is “besmitten” by the pipes. To her, it is like Bono and Sting and Paul McCartney and Justin Bieber are all walking down the street at the same time. She’s such a bagpipe geek that she turned to me during the parade and whimsically exclaimed, “They’re playing ‘Ho Ro My Nut Brown Maiden’!!” She was positively giddy. She’s been watching this old Scottish movie, I Know Where I’m Going, over and over and over again. We now own it. They sing that song in the movie. I know where I’m going… probably to Scotland some time in the next calendar year. But here’s the thing: the pressure was now completely off of Yours Truly. This is now her best birthday ever. (side bar: Really, “Ho Ro My Nut Brown Maiden”? Is everybody drunk in Scotland?)
2.) Just because Steely McBeam is willing and available does NOT mean you have to put him in your parade. Notice the parade onlookers, who only moments prior were clapping enthusiastically at the troops and bands and military vehicles going by. Then, along comes Mr. Buzzkill. And you don’t have to team him up with members of the Pittsburgh Power, our arena football team, who were eagerly shaking hands with everybody they could reach. Turns out, they’ve never been before such a large crowd. Ba-da boom!
Which brings me to parade etiquette 3 and 4. 3) Nobody puts cement mixers in their parade. This is not something unusual or festive. It’s just a cement mixer. Why do people not put them in their parade? 4.) They are huge and block everything behind them. In this case, that would be the parade’s chief dignitary, Pennsylvania’s distinguished 5-star Major Auditor General Jack Wagner and a cadre of Marines. I’m just sayin’, it would have been nice to have seen the Marines, this being Memorial Day and all, and not Wet Cement Day. And I’m pretty sure that Wagner and the Marines were thinking how much better the parade might have been had they not had to spend all of it LOOKING INTO THE ASS-END OF A CEMENT MIXER!! Just FYI. You know, for next year.
The parade went right into Allegheny Cemetery. Have I ever gushed appropriately about Allegheny Cemetery before? It is one of my favorite places in all of Lawrenceville. It is freakin’ huge! It is built on 300 acres of hillside, featuring some of the most beautiful vistas in Pittsburgh.
From the Allegheny Cemetery Web site
It is beautifully maintained and home to huge herd of deer who are unfazed by human visitors — probably because dogs are prohibited and they have no natural predators within the gates. Walking through it, you instantly lose the sense that you are in a city. Like the cemeteries of Paris, the tomb stones range from a faded piece of limestone in the ground to incredibly artistic and ornate sculptures. The names on the stones include most of the names on the city’s street signs, buildings, and organizations. History just flows throughout. Some have been there since the early 1800s, and others were just interred last week. It is home to 16 former mayors, negro league star Josh Gibson, and to 1 percent of all deceased U.S. veterans. That’s right, 10,000 vets are buried there, from every war since and including the Civil War.
By this time, the heat was getting up there. Kids and dogs had brazenly wandered into the cemetery’s huge fountain. It looked pretty good to me, too, but I resisted.
They had a nice little ceremony with a fly-over by a big four-prop plane, probably from the Pittsburgh-based air wing base. I tried to snap a pic, but missed it on both fly-overs.
Cue the 21-gun salute by the Civil War reenactors. Then, a moving “Taps” by a marine bugler. And then, of course…
“Amazing Grace” by the pipers. By this time, Mrs. Bagger was getting kind of “stalky” — she needed to go home. And so did I. I swear, a couple of hours out in that heat and the ol’ brain starts to boil.
After watching the Pirates win their fourth game of the weekend, we enjoyed a restorative – and air-conditioned — nap. By evening, I grilled an amazing hunk of salmon with THE best marinade I have ever accidentally concocted. All I know is that it included soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, brown mustard, olive oil, and Parisienne spice. Not brain science, but it was heaven. There were presents and candles in puffy custard-filled pastry (a no cake decree had been issued).
All in all, it was a good day, and a perfect cap to the three-day Memorial Day weekend. Well, we thought so.
Rock and Roll Days; Boogie Nights
The deaths of Donna Summer and Robin Gibb this past week got me thinking about my youth, and the role that music played in it.
My father never played an instrument and is fairly tone-deaf — i.e. he has a hard time humming the note you play for him on the piano. My mother, on the other hand, could (and probably still can) play piano in the dark. She taught lessons. (Not to me. She wisely refused and sent me to another teacher.) Still, our generations were very different. My parents did not have a soundtrack to their lives. This is probably due to technology as much as anything else. Music was not portable to them. When they were teenagers in the early 50s, music was limited to static-filled radios, jukeboxes, and gigantic phonographs. My mother told me stories of working as a lifeguard one summer and listening to Bill Haley and the Comets sing “Rock around the Clock” over and over. But as far back as I remember, their music was only for special occasions, like candlelight, pearls, and cologne. They’d break out Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, Barbara Streisand, and the Ray Connif Singers for dinner parties, but not for everyday enjoyment. Even in the car, they usually listened to talk radio. By the time I discovered pop music, they put up with loud sounds coming from the basement, but I wouldn’t say that they were fans.
My generation was different. We grew up with music, took it with us, and played it whenever we could. Now, as adults, we share musical tastes with our kids. We may not like all the same music, but there is definite overlap, and we share the same need of having music as a background to the events of our lives.
Watching coverage of the passings of Summer and Gibb, I couldn’t help but reflect on my high school years, specifically 1978-1980. I was a bit young to have been a participant in the disco era. We suburban high schoolers were not sneaking into places like Studio 54. Plus, as the oldest child in my family, I had no older siblings to provide a musical education, or to cue me in as to what was hip and happening. I had to figure it all out without a roadmap. My earliest memories of music happened in the homes of some of my friends in grade school, where I discovered the Jackson 5, Credence, and Alice Cooper. Later, it was sneaking an AM transistor radio under my pillow and listening to Wolfman Jack do a countdown of the hits on WLS. I wondered what these strange people looked like, these singers of songs like “Kung Fu Fighting,” “The Best of My Love,” “Philadelphia Freedom,” and “Lady Marmalade.”
By high school, I mainly hung out with three different groups, each with their own musical roots.
The jocks, strangely, were a music-free zone. Walkmen and iPods did not exist. Portable radios were fragile and had these low fidelity ear phones, and usually only for one ear. Thus, workouts and practices were silent and music-less. The only sounds were squeaking tennis shoes, crunching pads, and the clanging of weights. There were no tunes playing in the locker room, the weight room, or on the track. Bus trips to away games were silent affairs. We were like Amish athletes training for the music-free Olympics.
Then there were the guys I hung out with. They were rock and rollers. This was pre-punk or alternative. They were mostly into crunching guitar bands like Zeppelin, Kiss, Nugent, and Cheap Trick. We started a little garage band. We only did covers. We called ourselves Midnight. Lame, I know. I hadn’t yet entered into the creative phase of my life. I played an electric piano that made these rather “bloopy”-sounding tones. Very little of what we played called for piano. They were nice to let me in. We actually played some gigs wearing these hideous, polyester jump suits made by the mother of one of our friends. We were like a forerunner of Devo, without the hats.
The third group was the theater kids. I had gotten into theater at some point because I had hurt my back weight lifting and was ordered to desist activity for a while. The theater director was a former football player himself who had also worked in the Houston Musical Theater. He sort of made theater “cool.” To us, he was like Roy Scheider in All That Jazz. He was in his twenties, but looked older — cigarette smoking, gruff temperament, and much more visionary than most high school drama teachers. It was at the theater cast parties that I was introduced to disco music. I didn’t love it, but as it played and played during our Old Milwaukee/Meister Brau drinking parties, it became a part of the soundtrack of my youth. I never owned a Bee Gees album, including the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, but I knew it front to back. In fact, to this day, I have never seen the movie all the way through.
Having sung in choir, and played the piano and french horn, I think I was drawn to a wider variety of music than the 3-chord guitar bands of my buddies. I got into Elton John and Rush and Fleetwood Mac and Chicago and Stevie Wonder and Genesis and Steely Dan and Boston and Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Queen. The closest thing I owned to disco were the Commodores and Earth, Wind & Fire. Sorry, but I don’t consider either “Brick House” or “September” to be disco.
(Side note: At the time, I don’t think it ever occurred to us that Elton John or Freddie Mercury were gay. And would it have mattered? I’m not sure we even knew what “gay” was. They were just flamboyant like Alice Cooper and Roger Daltry and David Bowie and Steven Tyler and Mick Jagger. Remember, unless you went to a concert, you only ever saw them in still photos, if that.)
Then, a funny thing happened in the seventies. One genre of music went to war with another. Rock and Roll decided that Disco Sucked. I don’t think this has ever happened since. I can’t imagine Indie Rock or R&B declaring war on Country & Western. But back then, there were limited radio stations for teens and some of the rock and roll stations were suddenly becoming disco stations, which didn’t sit well with the Rock and Rollers. Steve Dahl was a popular radio personality in Chicago. He led all his listeners in an avid anti-disco campaign. We all went along because he kept us entertained at our crappy summer job all through the sweltering summer of 1979. It culminated at a White Sox game that summer where you could get in for 98 cents (WLUP 98.5) with a disco record. They were going to collect them all and blow them up between games of a doubleheader. The Sox were only drawing about 6,000 fans a night that year, but that night, they packed it out. The Sox were not prepared and the event was not well thought out. Let’s just say that they weren’t there to see a baseball game. The LPs became dangerous projectiles. After the records were blown up, kids began to run onto the field. They began to tear up the grass. They took over the rolling batting cage and began to push it around the field. There weren’t enough cops. The White Sox had to forfeit the second game. Here’s some footage from a documentary.
I was not there, but that day is burned into my memory. We listened to Dahl’s show at our crappy job leading up to the event, and especially the day after. It was also at that job that we listened to the Beatles White Album all the way through about forty times. Number nine. Number nine. Number nine. Number nine. Number nine….
I know this is a jumble of memories, but this is what has been running through my mind this past week. Soon, the era would be over. By the time I was old enough to go to clubs, disco had given way to Dire Straits, the Eurythmics, U2, Laura Branigan, the Police, R.E.M., Hall & Oates, and Spandau Ballet. Kiss and Ted Nugent gave way to ZZ Top and Van Halen. And the clubs seemed to run a continuous loop of “Ride the White Horse.”
But I do find myself sort of nostalgic now and then for a Bee Gees fix. Hey, no other band other than the Beatles had three songs in the top 5 at the same time. But I prefer the pre-Saturday Night Fever stuff. And never has a band’s voices and faces been so strangely mixed.
And here’s a golden oldie from 1975. Extra credit: try counting all the keyboards.
I was NEVER really in to Donna Summer, but this song was always the last one played at ever dance. If you hadn’t worked up to ask that girl yet, now was the time.
It’s funny how music brings back a flood of memories. In this case, it’s a bunch of kids with blow-dried hair driving around town in a large gas-guzzling Suburban, just looking for party. The girls either had the Dorothy Hamill wedge cut or the Farrah Fawcett flip. The guys all tried to look like Willie Aames or Bruce Jenner. Me, I went with more of the Gabe Kaplan look, without the mustache. Nice, I know. Those were nights of cheap beer, grabbing a burger at Yankee Doodle (the local fast food joint), and cruising around Glen Ellyn, Illinois, without finding much else going on. 
Despite our stupidity, we were fairly harmless. I don’t remember anyone passing out or throwing up. We really didn’t overdo it. Drugs were not big, or if they were, I wasn’t invited. There were some bongs here or there, but I remember being scared to death of drugs in general. To me, one taste and you were instantly addicted and on your way to becoming a junkie. I was pretty sheltered.
I’m pretty sure that all these memories have been fit with rounded edges and soft focus in my memory. But I have a much warmer spot in my heart for the 70s than I do the 80s. The 80s were filled with drama and more stupidity and pain and struggle. I really didn’t get my act together until the 90s. But I don’t think I’m alone in that. And that’s a story for another day. In the meantime…
Summer reading list
I need a list of book this summer or else I am apt to start one book, see another I like and start reading it, and then, come August, I’ll have six unfinished books piling up on my bed stand. I am a scattered and cluttered soul in need of order and discipline. A book list is a fine place to start.
Going to keep things attainable. Going to plan for four books, one each month. If I finish in July, I’ll start a fifth. How ’bout that?
MAY
I’ve already started In the Garden of Beasts on the recommendation of my friend and fellow blogger, Emma. As a history buff, especially WWII history, this is perfect. It’s about the newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to Germany in 1933. Boy, is he going to be busy. I’m hoping this spurs me to start rehabbing my Dietrich Bonhoeffer screenplay. It’s a bit of a mess and I haven’t touched it in probably eight years. Perhaps reading of brown shirts, goose stepping, and the Bundestag will be just the push I need.
Besides, Tom Hanks is already on board to star in the film, so why not read the book first before all the hype begins.
JUNE
Summer is also a great time for a good old-fashioned crime novel. In the past, I’ve been a great fan of fun reads by writers like James Ellroy (American Tabloid!!), Martin Cruz Smith (Gorky Park), and the godfather of American crime novel dialog, Elmore Leonard (who once said, “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it”).
The newest name on my radar, although he’s been around for quite a while, is George Pelecanos. He is probably best known for writing some of the best episodes of The Wire. Basically, whenever they needed to bump off a major character, they brought in George. But he’s also been pumping out some well-regarded crime novels set in the non-political streets of Washington D.C. Who wouldn’t love a novel with a gritty title like Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go?
But he has a series of novels called the D.C. Quartet. Each is in D.C. but in a different decade. The Big Blowdown takes place in the forties and fifties. King Suckerman is like a blacksploitation novel of the 1970s. The Sweet Forever plays against a backdrop of cocaine and the NCAA tournament during the 1980s. (Yes, Len Bias makes an appearance.) And Shame the Devil takes us into the mid-1990s. As I understand them, they are not sequels but merely a series of books. So, I plan to start with The Sweet Forever, which I’m told is one of his best.
In the future, I’d like to dip into some of the real historic crime novelists like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Since so many of their books were made into such iconic Humphrey Bogart movies, I guess I didn’t want to approach them. I think it may be time.
JULY
I’m not proud of this. But I started reading this book last winter and got sidetracked. It certainly wasn’t due to the quality of the book. On the contrary, I think it is so good that it just blew my mind for a while and I had to walk away to think about it. I need to man up and finish it.
Beautiful Souls: Saying No, Breaking Ranks, and Heeding the Voice of Conscience in Dark Times is by journalist Eval Press. It is a beautifully written book about whistleblowers. Why do some people go along with evil or morally questionable activity while others stand up and face the consequences of saying NO? It starts with German soldiers ordered to massacre Poles in a forest. It studies a Swiss police captain during WWII who refused to enforce a law barring Jews from entering his country. Then, it continues to tell the dramatic stories of unlikely resisters who felt the flicker of conscience when thrust into morally compromising situations. Press shows that the boldest acts of dissent are often carried out not by radicals seeking to overthrow the system but by true believers who cling with unusual fierceness to their convictions. It ends with the story of a financial industry whistleblower who loses her job after refusing to sell a toxic product she rightly suspects is being misleadingly advertised. What better time to examine the choices and dilemmas we all face when our principles collide with our loyalties and the responsibilities we are expected to carry out.
Like I said, this book messes with you. You spend most of your time asking yourself, What would I have done? Would I have had the courage to refuse? Would I have stood up? You might not always like the answer.
AUGUST
This is wild card time. I’m open for suggestions. Here are some books up for consideration:
A Pirate for Life by Steve Blass. Baseball people tell the best stories in all of sports. And isn’t summer meant for baseball books? Blass had a remarkable career, beginning with a complete-game victory over Don Drysdale in 1964 to being the winning pitcher of the final game of the ’69 World Series to suddenly losing the ability to control his pitches and having to retire. But I’m sure the best parts are found in the many stories of a decade spent in the Pirate locker room.
Calico Joe by John Grisham. “A surprising and moving novel of fathers and sons, forgiveness and redemption, set in the world of Major League Baseball.” Come on, I’m tearing up already. Wanna have a catch?
The Presidents Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity. “The inside story of the world’s most exclusive fraternity; how presidents from Hoover through Obama worked with — and sometimes, against — each other when they were in and out of power.” I’m fascinated about the behind-the-scenes life of a being The President. What is family life like? How do you go Christmas shopping? Does the Secret Service follow you to the bathroom in the middle of the night? What’s it like to not drive a car for 4-8 years? I want to know more!
These are the August candidates, but it’s early and I can be bought persuaded to go in a different direction.
What’s on your list this summer?
The slow decline of America’s most liveable city
I take no pleasure in this post. But I call ‘em as I see ‘em.
I love mass transportation. Sure, it can be a hassle sometimes, but so can sitting in a traffic jam on clogged expressways. The lifeblood of a world-class city revolves around a mass transit system that can get people around. It needs to be accessible and utilized by both the stock broker and the stock clerk, the architect and the brick layer, the young lawyer and the aged grandmother. This is how it works all over the world.
I’ve used mass transportation in many cities. I love the Metro in Paris. On one trip there, while sleep-deprived and jet lagged, I was able to figure out how to use two metro trains to get to the booking company and find the landlord of our rental apartment, who happened to be only one block from the apartment in the first place. I love the art deco signs that mark the Metro system all over Paris. I love the El in Chicago, the subways in New York, the Metro in D. C., cable cars in San Fran, and even the fairly useless Metro system in L.A. You just have to get used to taking a subway to go under a mountain when an earthquake could hit at any moment. It’s like a reverse lottery — if your number comes up, you lose.
Unfortunately, Pittsburgh’s status of most liveable city is about to go on life support. This week, the Port Authority board approved deep cuts set to go into effect on September 2. The cuts will eliminate 46 of the city’s 102 routes. Service across the city will end at 10 p.m. for all but 13 bus and rail routes. Between 400 and 500 employees will be laid off. ACCESS, the agency’s nationally recognized paratransit service for the elderly and disabled that provides 6,000 daily rides, will be reduced by 35 percent, stranding an estimated 1,800 riders. Zone 1 fares will go up a quarter, to $2.50. Ridership is expected to drop by 20 percent. That’s right, 1 of every 5 riders will be forced to either drive their cars into the city or quit their jobs or schooling. And studies show that even if the routes are restored one day, most of those folks won’t come back. They just won’t trust the system anymore.
All this because of a $64 million deficit in the P.A.’s $370 million budget. They face rising fuel costs and health insurance premiums. Their pension obligations are up 965 percent since 2005. And in the end, the Authority is legally obligated to balance their budget. Of course, this will impact the poor much more than the wealth. Money buys you options. Of course, few will care.
Conservatives will be quick to put all the blame on those evil, greedy labor unions. They would be half right, as usual. First of all, unions only exist because greedy employers used to work powerless workers on 12-hour shifts in dangerous conditions at slave wages in order to make their first million. (Don’t think they wouldn’t do it today if they could get away with it. Foxconn?) After enough workers fell into the slag pots, the minions finally realized that there was power in numbers, and they organized. In the end, there was plenty of greed on both sides of the negotiation table. Then, many decades ago, unions and their employers discovered that companies could get around wage increases by deferring money into pensions and retirement health care. Back then, many people were like my grandfather. He retired on a Friday and had a heart attack on a Sunday. In 1973, all they knew to do for heart attacks was to put him in an oxygen tent and hope for the best. He died that night, having never experienced a day of retirement. Today, they would have put him on blood thinners or blood pressure and cholesterol medication or done a bypass, and he would have had another twenty years, at least. As Hamlet said, “There’s the rub.” Retirees are living decades longer today. Heath care costs are a good 600 percent higher than in the 70s. The result is that companies and government entities can no longer meet the pension and health care obligations that they made so long ago. The pressure is on unions to give back all the gains they once accepted in lieu of pay raises.
At a time in which the city is beginning to break ground on large square blocks downtown for high-rise towers and new urban development, this will be a devastating blow to the economy of the region. At a time in which we should be investing in light rail and additional forms of public transportation, we are gutting it instead. Governor Rendell was always good at finding money in the budget at the eleventh hour. The current governor, Corbett, seems to relish the cuts. He is holding a gun to the union’s head, insisting that they give back everything they have ever bargained for before the state makes any contributions. The unions don’t trust that the state will give anything and are demanding that Corbett make a pledge of equal support first, but they mistake the Gov for someone who cares. There are many in the general public who see all unions as corrupt, evil socialist entities. Generally, these are not people who depend on bus service. Thus, there is little talk of finding additional revenue from corporate sponsorships or gas taxes or increasing the P.A.’s share of the sales tax. It all must be done through cuts in service, layoffs, and union concessions.
No one seems to have a stomach for investing in infrastructure these days. That lack of foresight will come home to roost in our city in the coming years. It’s the same mentality that is eager to throw out NASA, Planned Parenthood, and the Post Office. But hey, at least we’ve got a nifty new $523 million North Shore Connector so that people can get to the casino without having to walk over a bridge. So there’s that.
Sorry for not bringing the funny today.
Follow Fridays
This humble blog began on October 28, 2009. My first post was a short little blurb about a time when Pittsburgh was building casinos and threatening to close multiple libraries, and something about that just felt wrong. 
It was a time when I was bored with my job and needed an outlet for my writing. I had no pet cause or theme. It wasn’t a sports blog or a mommy blog or a home town blog. It was a little bit of everything. Whatever was on my mind that day. It’s still that way. Two and a half years and 354 posts later, we’re still going. I could probably build a bigger audience if I picked one theme or direction and stuck with it, but I would probably burn out on that in a few months. And I don’t do this to build a huge readership. I still do it as an outlet. That’s not to say that I don’t completely adore my audience. I do. Each and every day, I am humbled and amazed that anyone at all stops by to actually read what I write. I am also grateful for the small community of blogger/commenters who share their reactions and lend support. Over these past few years, we have formed at rather rag-tag community. We visit each other’s sites to contribute, encourage, and keep up with our lives. This has been an unexpected and rewarding bonus to the whole blogging thing. Some of us try to get together once a year or so, and will be doing so again this summer.
But then there is that anonymous army of people who visit your blog… only known as numbers on my statistics page. Some may be regulars who stop by to read what’s going on. Others probably end up here by accident thanks to some wayward Google search. Why, just today I received hits from Google searches for “green stamps,” “dwight d. eisenhower,” and “dog melancholy.” We aim to please. Also, Dog Melancholy would be a solid band name. I’m just sayin’.
Even knowing that these statistics are not necessarily avid fans, I’m still amazed at the numbers for my blog. I’m no blogging phenomenon. I average a very pedestrian 75 hits per day. My biggest day ever was 293 hits. 
But I think it’s cool that in the last seven days, I’ve had visitors from 34 countries, including 1 each from Morocco, Bahrain, and Tanzania; 2 from Sudan, and 3 from Slovakia. I’m huge in Slovakia!
But perhaps the most amazing thing is the people who have signed up to “follow” my blog just in the past few months. (You can do that by clicking the “FOLLOW” button over there on the right!) I’m amazed because my blog is all over the place and I fear that these followers come for a specific post on a certain subject. In fact, I know this is true because I see the posts in which they click the “follow” button. When I go to their blogs, I find that they have such incredibly diverse and fascinating backgrounds. And I have no idea why they would keep coming back here. But they follow, which means they get a little email every time I post. So, as a way of thank you, I’d like to share some of these followers. I hope you’ll at least go to their sites once to check out what they are doing.
Adam P. Bellotto eats and sleeps television. I know this because the name of his blog is Eat, Sleep, Television. He is a college student at Virginia Commonwealth who dissects and reviews all the shows I never watch: Mad Men (I know, I’m sorry, I never committed), Eastbound and Down, Game of Thrones, and Justified (I watch this, but on DVD and he is current, so I dare not read). I wish I watched these shows and could contribute to the conversation, but I don’t. I have HBO for three months as some kind of DirectTV promotion but once that’s over, I’m cutting it. The movies during this promotion have been horrible. I can’t justify the monthly cost. But back to Adam! He also reviews a few movies. So check him out!
Matt Lomax lives in the UK and writes Lomax Bike. It’s filled with all kinds of cycling info about the latest biking technology, gear, trips, and how many days to the Tour de France. He hit follow after my lone bike post about the opening of a trail to the Pittsburgh airport. I can only imagine his level of disappointment since then at my plethora of bike-free posts. So if you like bikes at all, or just the Brits in general, visit his site!
Then there’s Old Jules. Right there on the front page of his blog, So Far from Heaven, he tells you that he’s “69 years old, living in the middle of nowhere in the Texas Hill Country with four cats and a dozen chickens.” It’s hard to nail down Jules’ angle on things. He will not be put into a convenient ideology box. I also love how he describes himself on his “about” page: “This blog is the reflections of a man late in life carrying a brain that’s traveled a seemingly impossible, certainly unlikely, and admittedly sometimes banal journey beginning during WWII and threading through the social experiment that was the last 69 years. I’m sharing it with you because there’s almost no likelihood you’ll believe it. I wouldn’t expect you to, you being who you are.” I love this blog because it’s like the Big Lebowski if he lived on the Texas back roads. Give it look.
Then there are the folks who have been drawn by my posts on faith. Heidi White writes In Search of Sanctuary somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. She hasn’t posted in quite a while, though, so let this be a friendly kick in the backside to “hie thee hence” and get back to it. Andrew and Sarabeth Toy only recently hit follow. They’re from Kentucky and write AdoptingJames about their process of trying to adopt their first child.
Alle is from Pittsburgh (I think, but I don’t know why I think that), and she is a huge book fan who is trying to read like 75 of the classics in the next three years. She has a list. And a plan. But she writes about other things, too, so check out Allegraphy.
Jon is a baseball hitting instructor who hit follow about 20 hours ago after my Jamie Moyer post, so he hasn’t even had time to be disappointed in me yet! I’m not sure where he hails from but if you have anyone in your life who needs instruction in the art of swatting a baseball, check out hittingmorelinedrives. Pedro Alvarez, I’m looking at you!!
Stew’s Brew is written by my cousin in Chicago. He writes some great posts on travel and food and drink and, basically, all things having to do with enjoying life a little more.
Emma is one of my dear friends here in Pittsburgh. She had a rather traumatic brain injury while on a mission trip in Mexico a few years back and continues to suffer almost constant pain and other concussion-related issues. She amazes me with her ability to cope with it all while remaining a wonderful, intelligent, funny, and fascinating person. She writes Em-anating which is full of humor, wonderment, and her desire to run in 50 races in 50 states before she turns 50. She has a couple decades to go and is well on her way, so check her out.
My last highlighted blogger is Stella Marr. She hit follow after my post on how much men suck and how women should probably be running things. I went to her site and was completely blown away by her story. She was a prostitute in New York City for ten years and now writes about the sex trade industry in her blog, My Body the City: The Secret Life of a Callgirl. She recently wrote a post featuring a letter to her younger self which is just so devastatingly beautiful. Her story is so powerful, I’m almost afraid to post responses there because what do you say to a story like that that doesn’t sound trite? Especially as a dude.
So these are some of my peeps. Baseball coaches, ex-hookers, biking Brits, old Texans, collegiate TV reviewers, classic literature fans, slightly concussed 5K runners, and much more. How do you keep this group entertained? I have no freakin’ idea, so I will just keep doin’ what I do and see what happens. Just know that I love all my peeps, including the two of you in Sudan and the three in Slovakia. Dobrý deň!
And for those of you who never say anything, dare to write a comment every now and then, just to let me know you’re out there!
Happy Follow Friday!
Random weirdness
Going back to work after nine days away is never easy. But there is something to be said for easing back into a routine. You know, knowing what you’re supposed to be doing at the various hours of the day. Having all that time off led to some pretty unfocused behavior on my part. Like shopping. I don’t shop a lot, and when I do, it’s more like a hunting expedition. I hunt for what I’m looking for. Get it as quickly as possible. And go home. It’s not something to be enjoyed or savored. But on several of my shopping trips during Thanksgiving week, I ran into things I’ve never seen before. Some so strange I took pictures. (Apologies ahead of time for the foggy state of my iPhone camera lens. Someone needs a good cleaning!)
Let’s start with this gem. Yeah, I’m like twelve years old sometimes. This was in Chicago, but it proves that the good folks at Heinz are making more than just ketchup these days. There were cans and cans of dick in this aisle. It must be some sort of ethnic Thanksgiving food because I’ve never seen it on shelves before. I’ll save you the Google. It’s some sort of English fruited pudding. Those English. So cheeky.
Back in Pittsburgh, I guess the kids are eating Fleury Flakes. I’m not exactly surprised to see sports stars getting food named after them. After the 1985 Bears’ championship, there were Bears players on everything. But I’m not sure they renamed products after them. And of all the Pens, the goalie gets the honor? I know, I know… he’s awesome. Okay, I get it. But this was the only Pens-endorsed product I could find. There was no Malkin Milk, Crosby Croutons, or Tangradi Tangaray. Deryk Engelland spotted dick? That seems like a natural.
Gotta admit. I was rather gobsmacked by this one. Right there in the Giant Eagle, I just stared at it for a good minute. And it was on one of those end-of-the-aisle shelves. A Justin Bieber singing toothbrush. God, I can’t think of anything I don’t want coming out of my foam-filled mouth more than the Biebs’ voice. But it’s good to know that he’s concerned about the dental hygiene habits of his fan base. On the other hand, I’m sure I can think of somebody who really needs one of these this Christmas. (Hello, White Elephant gift?)
Then came Small Business Saturday. What better place to do that than the many small businesses of Lawrenceville. First stop was the vintage furniture and more store, Who New? This place has everything from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. I usually walk around the place saying, “We used to have that. We used to have one of those. We totally had that.” Of course, now it’s all vintage and pricey.
Of course, all I could think of when I saw this was our good blogging friend Bluz Dude. This is so him. I can just see him in a shag-carpeted, wood-paneled basement playing “Me and Mrs. Jones” as he romanced his own Mrs. Robinson. Ah, Bluz.
The whole store is like this. You can outfit a whole room in some groovy shades and shapes.
But then, I ran into this…
What the hell kind of amateur dentistry are we practicing here? “Just make yourself comfortable, rest your head back, and let the Justin Bieber singing toothbrush do the work!”
I don’t even want to know why someone would want this chair.
On the way home, I couldn’t help snapping a shot as they begin to disassemble the Igloo. Since I didn’t spend my childhood there, I really can’t get that worked up about them tearing it down. I’ve been in it recently. It’s a dump. And my feeling is, the land should be put to the best possible use for the both the Hill District and the city. But it sure would be less painful for the city if they could just dynamite it like they did Three Rivers Stadium. Boom, one moment it’s there; the next moment it’s not. I guess dynamiting it is not an option what with all the asbestos in there. Since the Hill was devastated by building the thing, I guess we shouldn’t poison them in taking it down. It’s the least we can do.
Well, that’s a quick photo journal of my few days off. Now it’s back to a desk full of paperwork, a slog of emails to work through, and a long commute on each end. Back to routine.
Being Thankful
Popping my head out of the Thanksgiving witness protection program long enough to attempt a post using the iPad. We are in the far-flung Chicago suburb of Burr Ridge. I sure hope there was a guy named Burr and that they didn’t name this town for those annoying thorny balls in the woods that stick to the bottom of your pant legs. But I digress…
Because all my family fled Chicago decades ago, we are spending the holiday with Mrs. Bagger’s family, including the infamous Princess and Duchess from Occupy Wall Street fame. And since Mrs. Bagger’s Scrooge-like employer is making her work on Friday, we are having Thanksgiving tonight (Wed) before driving back to Pittsburgh tomorrow (Thurs).
For the meal, I was assigned the green bean casserole. Really? What a slap in the culinary face. That’s what they give you when they think you are worthless in the kitchen. As in, “Give him the green bean casserole. If he ruins it, no big deal.” Yeah, homie don’t play that. I’ve got game in the kitchen! So, I decided to take their green bean casserole and knock it out of the park. Found a recipe at Epicurious. Bought fresh green beans and sliced mushrooms. In addition to the traditional cream of mushroom soup and fried onions, I’m rocking some horseradish and Worcestershire sauce. Bam! As of this morning, however, even that as been taken away and given to the nieces. Now, I’m the guy who has to go get the rolls. Seriously, THE ROLLS! Why not just call me the long snapper? Stick me on the fourth line. Designate me as strictly a pinch-hitter.
That’s okay. Actually, I think it was my lovely wife having mercy on me, knowing that I would much rather spend a few hours of my vacation blogging in a Starbucks. And for that, I’m thankful.
Besides my beautiful bride, what else am I thankful for?
For my life in Lawrenceville and greater Pittsburgh in general.
For my fellow bloggers.
For the summers I get to spend watching Andrew McCutchen.
For the return of Sidney Crosby (knocking on all things wooden)
For full employment, plus a few career dreams I’m not yet too old to dream.
For good friends and family all across the country.
For my loyal and fluffy dog.
For the ability to post on a normal computer because doing this on an iPad is truly a pain in the ass.
And for the fact that despite complete political gridlock, economic doldrums, and corporate malfeasance, this is still a pretty good country in which to live.
Happy Thanksgiving!! I’ve got rolls to buy.
It’s not just the states that are red and blue
“Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.” — Morpheus
What a prophetic movie The Matrix was in 1999. One of the greatest conspiracy/Big Brother tales ever made. I contend its legacy would be even greater if they hadn’t felt the need to make two lesser sequels. Isn’t that just like Hollywood? You actually stumble into a truly great and inspired story, and then, ruin it with two uninspired and materialistic attempts at repeating the magic. But you can’t recreate the original. It existed as art. The sequels were just a money grab that tarnished the shine of the original. Ironic, given the original message.
Neo: “Why do my eyes hurt?” Morpheus: “Because you’ve never used them before.”
That’s just stellar.
And of course, there were the pills. One red; one blue. You are free to select the one you wish. They aren’t an entrance into reality but a free choice. Do you want to know the truth? Or, would you rather not know? You can make that choice. But understand that knowing comes with a price, a cost. Ignorance is bliss.
“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. ” — Morpheus
There is very little actual comfort in knowing. Dorothy was probably better off believing in the image and myth of Oz. 
By peering behind the curtain (actually, I think it was Toto who pulled it back for her), the idea that had been Oz shattered, only to be replaced by a frail, fallible human being frantically pulling at levers and strings to keep the entire fallacy afloat. Oops. Some things can’t be unseen. That kind of knowledge changes things.
We say we want to know the truth, but do we really? Do you really want to know the health department reports on the kitchen of that restaurant you love? Do you really want to know what everybody else thinks about you? If you could, would you want to know the date of your own death? Some things are better left to fate and the great unknown.
I often feel that way about other things these days. I wish I could look at the Wall Street protesters and roll my eyes and laugh them off as a bunch of spoiled, whining, ungrateful, Socialist hippies. I wish I could look to the Wall Street tycoons and corporate CEOs as the civic pillars of all that is right and honest and true. I wish Washington were filled with Mr. and Mrs. Smiths, representing the interests of the common man and fighting for the rights of the underdog. Oh, to have Edward R. Murrow smoking and delivering the cold, hard truth every night.
I’d much rather believe that markets are free, that elections matter, and that an unbiased media tells it like it is. That would be so much easier. You could “wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.” Go about your day. There’s nothing to see here. Move along. The status quo is sufficient; no change is necessary.
“I know what you’re thinking, ’cause right now I’m thinking the same thing. Actually, I’ve been thinking it ever since I got here: Why oh why didn’t I take the BLUE pill?” –Cypher
History is filled with radicals, weirdos, and freaks who took the red pill. It’s not for everyone. It makes you stand out. It makes you stand up. It makes you march into the spotlight. It makes you stick your neck out. Most would just rather not. Indeed, the red pill-takers have almost always been mocked, insulted, and brushed aside by status quo blue pill-folks.The blue-pill folks are not bad people. They just aren’t able to see it. Good people looked at slavery and saw nothing wrong. Good people paid children very little to work in factories. Good people told black people to move to the back of the bus and didn’t think anything of it. Why? I don’t know. Some people saw it; some people didn’t. We’d be fools to not think that it’s the same way today.
“What’s your problem?” “Why are you so ungrateful?” “Can’t you just enjoy what you have?” “Why do you have to cause trouble?” “Why don’t you just get a job?” “You don’t see the rest of us complaining, do you?”
The men who took part in the original Boston Tea Party did not wave British flags, wear patriotic costumes, or brag about “taking their county back.” They were subversives and revolutionaries. Instead of wearing bandannas, they hid their identities by dressing as native Americans. They broke the law. They engaged in economic terrorism. They trashed another man’s business. (I assume that some businessman had imported all that tea!) They no longer felt represented by their government. They didn’t want to take back their country; they wanted to blow it up and start something new. Anarchy! Who does that sound like? Today’s Tea Party or the Occupy movement? They were opposed by Loyalists, primarily businesspeople, politicians, and regular citizens who may have thought their taxes were a bit too high, but not to the point of rebellion and treason. They were opposed by Anglican clergy who cited the Bible: “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account.” They were called criminals and an angry mob.
“What’s your problem?”
In the early 1900s, fringe groups began to oppose child labor practices, even though it provided income for immigrants and a needed source of cheap labor for the industrial revolution. Protests sprang up, not to deport the workers but to put them into school where they belonged. People in the big cities marched on behalf of the children. A constitutional amendment authorizing federal child labor legislation was passed by Congress in 1924, but the conservative political climate of the 1920s, together with opposition from some church groups and farm organizations that feared a possible increase of federal power in areas related to children, prevented many states from ratifying it. It took the Great Depression to weaken conservative opposition and pave the way for actual reform.
“Why are you so ungrateful?”
Isn’t it hard to believe that it wasn’t until the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1920 that women were guaranteed the right to vote? After all, black men had secured their voting privileges all the way back in 1869. During the beginning of the twentieth century, as women’s suffrage faced several important federal votes, a portion of the suffrage movement known as the National Women’s Party became the first “cause” to picket outside the White House. Several suffragists were arrested and jailed. Their movement was opposed by upper-society women (women who felt they already had a behind-the-scenes influence and didn’t want to lose it), Catholics (who subscribed to male leadership in all things, including politics), Southern whites (afraid of black women getting the vote), and saloon owners (afraid women would vote to ban alcohol). Imagine the guts it would take to protest and march when you don’t even have the right to vote.
“Can’t you just enjoy what you have?”
Wikipedia dates The Civil Rights Movement from 1955-1968. (I’m sure there are those who would say they were fighting for civil rights long before ’55.) It’s hard to believe that more than one hundred years after slavery was abolished, black citizens still had few rights in this country. In my lifetime, blacks were banned from white swimming pools, restaurants, drinking fountains, and rest rooms. Civil Rights protesters were hardcore. They were putting their lives at risk, and indeed, some paid the ultimate price. If you think you would stand out holding a sign at Mellon Green, imagine how these folks felt marching in Birmingham, Alabama. Radicals. Freaks. Revolutionaries.
“Why do you have to cause trouble?”
And then, there were the anti-war protesters in the late 1960s. They were called every name in the book. Commies. Hippies. Cowards. But they saw what was going on. They were appalled by the body counts on both sides. They were morally outraged at the way their country had little concern for the sacredness of life. They were offended that so many young black men were being sent away to fight and die for a rich white man’s war. They were shocked at the brutality and war crimes. Some were convinced that violent acts of terrorism were the only methods that could have an effect on such a morally bankrupt government. Most, however, resisted peacefully.
“Why don’t you just get a job?”
These Americans (or future Americans) all took the red pill. They could not remain silent in the face of the injustices they could not “unsee.” And in each case, they were opposed by the entrenched society–usually conservative forces who generally responded with dire predictions of what would happen if the protesters got their way. Nothing would be safe. Fear would rule the day. Mob mentality would prevail. Anarchy. Communism! Blue pill citizens shook their heads and looked upon the demonstrators with shame.
“You don’t see the rest of us complaining, do you?”
But in each case I’ve listed above, the protesters were ultimately proved right in their cause. History is firmly on their side. I’m sure it didn’t feel that way at the time. I’m sure it didn’t look that way to others who were shocked at their dissent. But these radicals just knew that things weren’t right.
Those involved the Occupy movement have heard it all. Get a job. What’s your problem? What a bunch of whiners and complainers! You can’t change things. Just accept it. Don’t make waves.
The long-time protesters participating in the Occupy protests will tell you a great truth: they’ve never seen most of these people before. That goes for Occupy Wall Street as well as for Occupy LA, San Francisco, Oakland, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Chicago, Nashville, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Des Moines, Ft. Wayne, Bozeman, Fairbanks, Manchester, Peoria, Cumberland, Kalamazoo, and many more. Don’t get me started on the list of cities all over the world. These are regular people. Educated people. Thinking people.
This is not political, this is sociological. Rush Limbaugh only wishes this was some Democratic or Move On.org-manufactured movement. If it were, it would died in a week.
When Pat Robertson recently spoke out against Christians participating in the movement, he called it “atavistic.” I’m not ashamed to say I had to look that one up. The dictionary definition is “relating to reversion to a former or more primitive type.” In other words, he’s afraid we are descending from the social order of things. But there is also a scientific definition: “Relating to an inherited trait that reappears in an individual after being absent from a strain of organism for several generations.” That sounds more like it. It’s like the world had successfully bred out our “give a shit” gene so that they could run roughshod over us. But at some point, that recessive gene–the “give a shit” gene–kicked back in. Suddenly, there is a significant portion of the population that is resistant to the bullshit. And that has got to be scary to those corporate and political geneticists who thought we would just keep shopping and watching television in silence. What does all this mean?
“It means fasten your seat belt Dorothy, ’cause Kansas is going bye-bye.” — Cypher
Everything in me hates having to quote a corporate ad campaign at this point. But in some way, I guess you could say that Steve Jobs was to corporate America what Occupy Wall Street is to the political system. Maybe? Yeah, maybe not. Still, for a corporate Apple ad, this is truly inspired, and is true about all the movements I mentioned above:
So, that’s why, as a 49-year-old homeowner with a good job and income, I fully support the Occupy movement. Although I can’t camp down there (although I may before it is over), I may not get arrested (although I may before it is over), and I can’t participate in every march or action (although I will be in a few), I stand with them. I have seen how broken the economic, political, and media systems are. I love my country, but not enough to stand idly by as it chews up and spits out so many of its citizens. I’m sickened by what deregulation, political corruption, derivatives, Alan Greenspan, Larry Summers, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, BP, Goldman Sachs, The New York Times, Rupert Murdoch, and all their like have done to this country. I’d rather pretend that none of it happened and that none it matters. But it did and it does.
“I didn’t say it would be easy, Neo. I just said it would be the truth.” –Morpheus
The post in which I complain about the greatest game in baseball history
First, let me state this again: I am a huge baseball fan. I travel to watch minor league games. I go to Spring Training games in Arizona between two teams I could care less about. I HAD A SEASON TICKET PACKAGE TO WATCH BRANDON MOSS PLAY FOR THE PIRATES, PEOPLE!
So, why did I turn off the TV during the 8th inning of arguably the greatest game in baseball history last night?
And it was history. The Cardinals were 10 1/2 games out of the playoffs the last week of August. They had to win their final game of the year to get into the post season. Then, they beat the best team in baseball, the Phillies. Then, they came back to beat the team with the best home record in baseball, the Brewers. In last night’s game, an elimination game if the Rangers had won, the Cardinals were down to their last strike twice. They trailed 7-4 in the 8th inning. In fact, they trailed 7-5 with two outs and two strikes in the ninth inning before St. Louis native David Freese (whose name could only be familiar to the nerdiest of fantasy baseball folks) ripped a game-tying triple. In the tenth inning, the Rangers struck again with a home run from another St. Louis native, Josh Hamilton. Game over, right? Not this night. In the bottom of the tenth, aging Lance Berkman tied things again with a clutch double. Then, finally, in the bottom of the eleventh, David Freese came up again and won the game with a walk-off home run to straight-away center field.
Why would I miss out on all that?
Well, for starters, the Cardinals were involved. For long-time Steeler fans out there, you might as well substitute the Browns, or better yet, a team with a history of beating you, like the Patriots. The Cardinals play in a hot muggy city where there is absolutely nothing to do but stare at a huge piece of bent metal that towers over the urban blight. Their red-clad fans descend upon your stadium like a plague of locusts. Without a huge payroll, they just seem to be good every single year.
Then, there’s the Cardinals manager, Tony LaRussa. What’s wrong with him? Well, there’s his hair. Strike One.
Then there’s the fact that this immortal Nosferatu mofo began his managerial career with the White Sox in 1979, the last year of the Carter administration. What kind of evil deal did this Dorian Gray wannabe strike with the devil? There’s no way he still owns his soul, right? Strike two.
And speaking of losing your soul, this hypocrite turned a blind eye as he shared a clubhouse with some of the most notorious steroid users in baseball history: Jose Canseco, Jason Giambi, Mark McGwire, Albert Pujols??? This guy has seen more needles than Florence Nightengale. When questioned about it, Tony said, “I’ve tried to build my career on credibility and trust, that’s what we do with our players. I’m telling you — we ran a clean program. That’s the way it is. That’s what I say, that’s what I believe.” This guy is ready to testify before Congress! Strike three; grab some bench!
That said, other than hatred, I really don’t have a lot of emotion for either the Cardinals or the Texas Rangers. Part of me thinks it would be cool to see the Rangers finally get a title. When I went to college in the Dallas/Ft.Worth area, the Rangers were a complete joke. Their stadium was right next to Six Flags over Texas. Nobody wanted to go and sit in 90 degree temperatures in Arlington in August to watch a crappy team. A part of me likes the fact that the Mavericks and Rangers could be champs while the Cowboys struggle to remember the last time they played football in January.
But none of those reasons add up to why I missed out on history last night.
At a quarter to twelve, I turned to the game. It was 7-4 in the eighth inning. You’ve got to be kidding me. I don’t know what’s worse. That they allow these games to routinely go more than four hours? Or that the league submits to Fox’s demand that the game not start until after 8:00 on the east coast so that they can get the end of the game into prime time on the west coast.
As a kid, there are some golden baseball moments imprinted in my memory. I remember watching Roberto Clemente and the Pirates take on the Orioles in a (gasp) World Series day game. I remember Hank Aaron hitting home run 714. I remember Pete Rose bowling over Ray Fosse in an All-Star game. I remember Carlton Fisk’s home run against the Reds. I remember the ball trickling through Bill Buckner’s legs. I remember Kirk Gibson hobbling around the bases after hitting a World Series pinch-hit home run. I can pretty much guarantee that none of these things happened after midnight, and that if they had, I wouldn’t have seen them.
Baseball’s legacy–its investment account, if you will–lies in the way it can worm its way into little boy’s hearts. (Okay, I’m sure there are some girls, too, but I’m going to go ahead and be sexist on this one.) For the good of baseball’s future, little boys need to go to bed with dreams of their heroes winning the game as the fans go wild. Last night, any parent who let their children stay up past midnight on a school night should probably be investigated by child services. ESPN reported on the many Cardinal fans who were seen leaving the game during the 7th inning. While some probably didn’t want to watch the Rangers celebrate in Busch Stadium, I’ll bet many of them were simply carting home exhausted kids who had to be at school this morning.
It baffles me why a sport would want its greatest moment to occur in the early hours of the morning. Even the Super Bowl isn’t fool enough to start at 8:05 p.m. because they actually want people to be able to see it. Shame on Major League Baseball. Go cash your check from Fox. But I don’t want to hear you complaining about how there aren’t enough kids playing baseball any more.
