Pittsburgh Dish

First Pittsburgh street newspaper gets first boost

A dream realized thanks to North Side residents

After reading an article posted on Dish last month about a social worker's attempt to launch a street newspaper, a North Side couple contributed $1,500 to the cause.

The residents, who wish to remain anonymous, pledged the first donation to Erica Smith, an outreach advocate and case worker with Operation Save-a-Life, part of Community Human Services. Smith will launch Word on the Street, a newspaper written, in part, by homeless people who would then sell the publication and earn part of of the profits.

Smith needed to secure funding for 300 papers to present to potential advertisers and vendors. After the couple's donation, CHS matched the contribution dollar-for-dollar.

"The couple told me they were tired of conventional ideas as solutions to homelessness," said Smith.

Word on the Street will be the only street paper between New York and Ohio.

Smith is gathering content and working with a tutor on desktop publishing software. She hopes to publish the first issue to present to advertisers by the end of the summer.

"It's all because of the Dish article," said Smith. "I can't thank you enough."

To help launch Word on the Street, contact Smith at 412-621-6513 or email her at ESmithchsc@yahoo.com.

National Papist Radio

NPR gives the dope on the Pope

Of the 300 million or so Americans, about 80 million are Catholic. That's a lot.

Pope Benedict XVI, who arrived in the States this week, is making his first visit to the American faithful since succeeding Pope John Paul II. This is a big deal.

In short, the Pope's visit is news to a significant number of Americans.

However, NPR (official radio news provider to Dish, whether they like it or not) has taken it upon itself to delve a little more deeply into the visit that seems absolutely necessary.

In recent days, we have heard two seminarians discuss the dearth of priests in the American Church. Old news. We have also heard, more times than could be counted, that Pope Benedict has turned out to be, though a strict adherent to Catholic dogma, less a fascist than many Catholic liberals anticipated. That's nice. However, so what?

Where's the news in the Pope being a more friendly dogmatic that expected? He's still, and should be, a proponent of traditional Catholic teachings as he is the freaking Pope.

(It'd be pretty stunning, however, if Benedict permitted the ordination of women, beatified Liberace, and donated the Sistine Chapel to Planned Parenthood.)

NPR has seen fit to inundate its listeners with other exciting tidbits, such as:

* Catholics are eager to see the Pope.

* Tom Cat bakery is making tasty treats for the Pope.

* The Pope has a Popemobile.

* The Pope may or may not impact the 2008 Presidential election.

* The Pope wants Catholics to follow Catholic teaching.

* There is a bit of a problem with pedophiles in the Priesthood and some people think the Pope has handled it well, while others disagree.

Dish has also heard the answer to the longstanding question, "Is the Pope Catholic?"

The answer is, "Yes."

To many, this Papal visit is a big deal. That's no surprise. And it's news. However, NPR, it's ultimately a pretty routine story. Be there if Benedict announces that the Four Horsemen are on their way, but leave the saturation
coverage for stores that are a bit more unusual or immediate.

What you've chosen to inundate your listeners with, NPR, is blanket coverage of the expected and attendant minutia. There are better uses for airtime.

Dish sold!

Now part of Tribune-Review family

Update: Owner Richard Mellon Scaife comments on the takeover

After a series of lengthy and intense negotiations, a deal has been reached between the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Pittsburgh Dish, giving the former unfettered control of the city’s premier online newspaper.

Tribune-Review Executive Editor Frank Craig called the acquisition a high water mark in the history of Pittsburgh’s second-fiddle daily: “In the face of the growing popularity of electronic media as the delivery method of choice for those seeking news, entertainment, and information of all stripes, the Tribune-Review sought a well-established inroad into said medium.  Dish is what we have ended up with."

Richard Mellon Scaife, the Trib’s owner and notable contributor to the Republican Party and its candidates said, “I think that revenues generated by Dish will enable us to resume our efforts to prove that Hillary Clinton, who I am now pretending to like, killed Vince Foster with a candlestick in the Lincoln Bedroom in order to ensure his silence regarding secrets only I know.”

Dish Co-publishers Colleen Van Tassell and Joe Miksch will remain on board at Dish, though they will no longer exert editorial control over the publication. Craig said he thought the pair more suited for coverage of the city’s western suburbs. Van Tassell and Miksch seem unfazed by the change in their duties. “We’re mostly OK with things,” Miksch said. “I mean, local government coverage is what I did when I got started in this business. I can only hope my contacts in Moon Township remember and trust me.”

Van Tassell, not a native of the Pittsburgh area, said simply, “The western suburbs? That’s around the airport, right?” Neither party would discuss the sale price.

Words on the street

Advocate hopes to give homeless people voice, jobs

Erica Smith, an outreach advocate and case worker with Operation Save-a-Life, would like to launch the first "street paper" in Pittsburgh. Called Word on the Street, it would be the only street newspaper between New York and Ohio.

But in order to do so, she needs to secure funding for 300 papers to present to potential advertisers and vendors.

According to he North American Street Newspaper Association (NASNA), street papers provide information on job training, housing opportunities as well as original reporting written by homeless people, formerly homeless people, advocates and professional journalists. Vendors sell the newspaper for a set price, usually $1, and have to pay the organization a fraction of the price (20% to 40%) for each paper up front. The self-employed vendor sells the papers on the street and keeps the money he or she makes. Vendors must wear identification badges and agree to a code of conduct that includes sobriety and staying off private property.

Funding comes from vendor sales, advertising, grants, and donations.

Though street papers date back to the 1910s and 20s with Cincinnati-based Hobo News, Street News, founded in 1989 in New York City is cited as the first modern street paper.

Editorially, street papers cover homeless issues often ignored by mainstream and alternative media. They offer first-hand accounts of life on the streets, profiles, news, features and reprints from street papers around the country. Some publish poetry, short stories and photography.

Since 2004, Street Sense, a Washington, D.C.-based bi-weekly, is responsible for at least 16 vendors finding housing and more than 30 starting part-time or full-time jobs, many of which were offered to them while selling the paper.

Smith's already lined up several writers from various human service fields not only to address homeless issues but cover general interest topics including travel and museum exhibits.

"It's not just going to be sad sack stories," said Smith.  "I want readers of all kinds to get something out of it and maybe educate them to issues they never thought about."

To help launch a Pittsburgh street paper, contact Smith at 412-621-6513 or email her at ESmithchsc@yahoo.com.

Criminal reporting

Post-Gazette not quite right

From yesterday's Post-Gazette about neighbors attempts to shut down the Manteca bar:

"The bar has drawn the attention of the city's Nuisance Bar Task Force in the past, but crime in the area seemed to slow after a nonfatal stabbing about a year ago, police and residents said."

In a story with as many holes in it as the front door of the Manteca bar once had, yesterday's story by Wade Malcolm and Moriah Balingit boldly stated--with minimal attribution--that crime in the area has ebbed within the last year.

Au contraire, cub reporters.

If in the area you mean within blocks of the Manteca, there was this, this, this and these.

Sounds like paradise.

Local newspaper lays off 10

Mr. Dish’s alma mater sheds apparently unnecessary talent

Thanks to this lousy internet thing (Dish never touches the stuff), a putrescent economy, and spreading illiteracy, the Beaver County Times—where Mr. Dish did the reporting for five years or so in the mid- to late-90s—laid off four newsroom employees last week.

Lori DeLauter, Rick Wasko, Peggy Glassford, and Jim Equels were dismissed. Mr. Dish was particularly fond of Wasko, whose ability to smoke an entire menthol cigarette within the temporal confines of an NBA shot clock never ceased to amaze him. DeLauter was—and likely continues to be—an excellent writer and reporter who dedicated herself to her job. An exemplary professional.

Six non-newsroom employees were also told that their services were no longer needed, including Jean Leis of the circulation department, who, as a source put it, “Has worked [at the Times] since the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s.”

The Times is far from the only Dish alma mater to downsize. Mrs. Dish's longtime employer, the Tribune-owned New Mass Media, sold their flagship weekly in December.

If you’re the kind of depressive who likes to watch the newspaper industry collapse, you can watch it all unfold here. Or, if you don’t feel up to reading, watch this season of HBO’s The Wire.

Good luck to all.

Local leathermen OUTraged

Local columnist on hot seat

Members of the city’s leathermen scene fired back at a columnist for Out--a monthly newspaper that serves Pittsburgh’s GLBT community--claiming the writer’s perception of the group is shallow and misguided .

In April, Colin Morgan, who pens a column called Master’s Class, wrote about his disappointment over meeting (read: bedding) leather chaps in various local gay bars. He was saddened by the lack tete a tetes on dungeons (he knows plenty of folks who have them in their houses) and found the fellas deficient in da pillow talk.

After not “exchanging bodily fluids” Morgan concluded that he spent “a night at the bar with a bunch of leathermen who don’t heed what I believe is Rule One in the leather community: It’s supposed to be about sex.”

Nobody seemed to be interested in anything but talking, he wrote. And the talk wasn’t cheap enough for Morgan.

Instead he eavesdropped on conversations about charity events, which he found tiresome.(For five years the Three Rivers Leather Club has sponsored and served Shepherd Wellness Community Dinners and have hosted numerous toy drives for foster kids.) Leather groups often sell raffle tickets and Jell-O shots as fundraisers in bars, which wasn’t hot and sticky enough for Morgan.

He advised: “Come on guys, let’s get back to basics. Charge me 10 dollars to come into your bar night if you want—but be sociable and frisky.”

Members of the leather community put their own pens to paper in this month’s issue of Out:

As the current president of the Three Rivers Leather Club, I’m concerned as to the misrepresentation of the leather community that self-proclaimed leather authority Mr. Morgan is giving to the gay community in general. …

Let me address the fund-raising that goes on at our events. When the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force outreach testing program in the bars ran short of funding a few years back, it was the Three Rivers Leather Club, in conjunction with the Eagle, that stepped up to raise the money to carry the agency through until funding resumed. …

This is the positive image that I would like to see portrayed to the gay community. The leather community is a brotherhood/sisterhood that fosters a non-judgmental acceptance of like-minded individuals, like a fraternity on a local and national level.

As for Mr. Morgan, I suggest that what he is looking for might be better found at a bookstore, truck stop or bathhouse.

--Dave Vey

And this:

Mr. Morgan’s major complaint seemed to be that he went to a leather bar recently and there wasn’t enough sex going on for his taste. Where does he point the blame? He takes issue with those working to raise money for important causes in the community, both locally and internationally. That sounds like a convenient and somewhat callous scapegoat for his inability to get what he was looking for….

I know a wide range of people in the Pittsburgh leather community, including pretty much everyone in both leather clubs and a number of local BDSM players. No one seems to know who “Colin Morgan” is. To me, that suggests one of two possibilities: either he’s a complete outsider who is saying a lot of things about a community he has little to no experience with or, more likely, it’s a pseudonym for someone who’s been around for a long time, has grown bitter and feels the need to grind his ax and settle some imaginary score. …

--Mike Natale, Mr. Pittsburgh Eagle Leather 2004

Photo above (Three Rivers Leather Club members)

Below: Some members of the TRLC serve a meal at a Shepherd Wellness Dinner. Photo from newsletter published online.

Ink ain't enough for local papers

Dumbing down the news or catching up with the times?

Dish’s favorite newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Mr. Dish’s former employer (also loved), the Beaver County Times, put news on paper. Apparently, in the go-go Intertubes era, that’s not enough. They’re also among, well, just about every other paper with a circulation above 2, newspapers that make their reporters emote the news into a camera and broadcast it on their websites (watch the video above).

As one might assume, Dish likes the Interweb. Dish, it’s equally obvious, likes news (tell us some, please, we’d love to report it). What Dish doesn’t like is another forum for the Talking Head, regardless of how much better the reportage may be (we’re talking newspaper over local TV news here).

Using talented reporters, photographers, and web people to report a story is grand. Witness this piece. Great stuff, right? But putting a dude or lady in front of the camera like this? Yes, it’s a lot easier and a lot cheaper, but it’s kinda useless, no? (OK, supposing you’re illiterate and can’t read the paper either in dead tree form or on the web, it might be helpful.)

Newspapers are struggling to adapt their strong suits to the electronic age. Dish understands and wishes them well. But, just a suggestion here, newspapers, tell new and different stories with the technology in your hands rather than force reporters to recite their work into a digicam.

Unless you can make Bob Smizik read his columns in a clown suit. That, P-G braintrust, would be hilarious.

Newspaper renames dead man

Mrs. Dish never knew her Dad's name was Paul

Now, Mrs. Dish was adopted, but there are certain things one expects to have known much earlier than two days after one's adoptive dad's demise. Make certain to read the last sentence.

From the Daytona Beach News-Journal:

Mass of Christian burial for William J. VanTassell, 80, Ormond Beach, who passed away Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2007, at Florida Hospital Oceanside, Ormond Beach with his loving family at his side, will be held Saturday, September 15, at St. Brendan Roman Catholic Church, Ormond Beach at 10 a.m. with the Rev. James Queen officiating. His family is inviting friends to attend visitation at Lohman Funeral Home, Ormond Beach, Friday from 5 p.m. until 7 p.m. He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Julia; son, Patrick, Hamden, Conn.; daughter, Colleen and her husband, Joseph Miksch, Pittsburgh, Pa.; brother, Eugene, W. Hartford, Conn.; sisters-in-law, Margaret and William Dolson, Dorothy and Vince Colonna, Charlotte and Kenneth Goeres; and several nieces and nephews. Bill was born in Beacon, N.Y., on January 12, 1927. He served in The U.S. Army. He married Julia Ramsey March 25, 1951. Bill was employed as a functional manager for IBM in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., retiring in 1981. His second career was with The Knights of Columbus. He was the Grand Knight for Trinity Council 445, New York State Deputy, Director for New York State then became Supreme Treasurer in New Haven, Conn., retiring in 1992. Bill was named an honorary life member of the Knights of Columbus. He was a member of the International Alliance of Catholic Knights of Columbus. He was recipient of the Order of St. Gregory and the Holy Secular and an honorary life member of Tompkins Hose Fire Department. Upon his retirement, his favorite pastime was golf. Memorial donations can be made in his name to Hospice of Volusia Flagler County. Condolences may be shared with the family at www.lohmanfuneralhomes.com. Arrangements are under the careful direction of Lohman Funeral Home Ormond. Paul was beloved by everyone and will be missed by all.

One more thing. Mr. Dish's pops (BillPaul we like to call him now) was a Mets fan from their inception. A few years ago, Mr. and Mrs. Dish visited BillPaul and Julia. BillPaul was wearing a Yankees cap. Not too much later, BillPaul was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Mrs. Dish, while quite saddened by the diagnosis, was pleased to have an explanation for the switch in fandom. There could have been no other reason, she belives.

Let's go Mets! For BillPaul's sake.

Arbor Day on the North Side

Kids dug the community garden

Photos by Frank Kownacki

Rain drops didn't dampen the spirits of the 50 or so North Side neighbors who showed up for an Arbor Day celebration Saturday at the Green Millennium Children's Garden. Kids planted trees under the supervision of Eric French and Garden Lady Laura Winter. Later, the small fries sat at a table and glued things that kids glue. The children's garden is located on Sherman Street in the Mexican War Streets. It's purty!

College Humor

Intentional and accidental

From the (always funny) Duquesne Duke Police Blotter:

This week, our fair campus experienced a crimewave of unparalleled proportion. Eleven students were found dead in Towers after their thermometers functioned perfectly and they died of shock upon entering a temperate dorm room.

A student was assaulted on A-walk in broad daylight. Fortunately, he was a pretzel. Unfortunately he was the son of a diplomat and war will soon be upon us

In the Forbes garage a gang of cars suddenly anthropomorphized into an elite Earth defense unit, only to be optioned into a screenplay by Michael Bay and get slated for a summer release.

A group of Greeks accidentally crawled through the basement of the Laval house, only to stumble onto a cave full of traps, pirate treasure and Joe Pantoliano. They saved their small New England town and liberated a mentally-challenged mutant after breaking the penis off a miniature replica of Michelangelo’s David.

The Force was finally discovered on campus this week, but soon dissipated after jedi mind tricks were abused in the acquisition of partial nudity.

A large moth blotted out the sun for several minutes after a pair of pocket-size japanese twins sang his name.

Lars Ulrich, of Metallica, came to campus and passed out free CDs after realizing he’s been a bunghole for the last fifteen years. Unfortunately, he only brought copies of St. Anger and angry fans beat him to death with his own ego.

...........................................................................................................................

From Pitt News:

"While my opinion of the College Republicans may have been lowered by this event, I am nonetheless excited about the chance to hear Ann Coulter speak." ...

Full text here.

Coulter to come

Hitler unavailable

According to this week's Pittsburgh City Paper, Ann Coulter, the noxious conservative blond bombshell, is scheduled to speak at Pitt on April Fool's Day. The she-devil was invited by the University of Pittsburgh chapter of the College Republicans. She is scheduled to speak at 7 p.m. in Pitt's David Lawrence Hall.

But, as reported by Chris Potter, editor of the City Paper, publicity for the event is as conservative as she is:

So far, news of Coulter's appearance has barely registered on campus, let alone off it. As this issue went to press, nothing about Coulter's appearance had yet appeared in the Pitt News, the campus newspaper. Nor have fliers been distributed on campus yet.

Read Potter's full story here.

Coulter spoke at The George Washington University last year and a student protest was caught on tape. Fast forward and you can see Coulter being driven away. But not before sliding a speaking fee into her purse.

If you have ideas for Coulter's itinerary while in Pittsburgh, please leave them in comments.

Like, it's Luke

Mayor Luke's public service announcement yesterday

In case you missed Mayor Luke Ravenstahl on "CBS Sunday Morning" yesterday, the following is the transcript from the show (video not posted on the CBS website). Since its airing, the producers of "Valley Girls, Like, The Sequel" have decided to shoot the film in Pittsburgh.:

CBS— Smokestacks still rise above the three rivers in Pittsburgh, once home to America's steel industry. But today, so do new stadiums, museums and high-tech businesses. It's more than a face-lift — Pittsburghers are trying to draw new money and new energy to town.

Leading the welcome wagon is 27-year-old Luke Ravenstahl. He is America's youngest big city mayor and was thrust into a situation no one saw coming.

Last September popular mayor Bob O'Connor died weeks after he was diagnosed with a fast-developing brain tumor. His death stunned the city. Ravenstahl was catapulted from relative obscurity as city council president into the national spotlight, but he never doubted that he could do the job.

"I never did — honestly, I never did," he told Sunday Morning correspondent Joie Chen. "We knew as a family it would be difficult because of the frenzy and the circumstances under which I would become mayor. But I never had any doubt that I was able to do the job."

He has his work cut out for him. Two years ago, the state pulled Pittsburgh back from the brink of bankruptcy.

"We're upside-down financially, as many Northeastern cities are," Pittsburgh Tribune Review columnist Joseph Mistick said. "We have more revenues going out than coming in."

The other day, the Penguins, the town's hockey team, threatened to leave if they don't get a new arena. In this sports-crazy city, that's a big deal.

Ravenstahl is well aware of that; his family has deep roots here. His grandfather was a state lawmaker who once ran for mayor himself and his father is a prominent judge. The young mayor's resume reads like a playbook for his political ambitions: High school class president, star kicker on his college team, elected to city council at age 23, and married to his high school sweetheart.

"It was hard at first for us to kind of step in and have all these people say, 'Mr. Mayor, Mrs. Mayor, First Lady,'" his wife Erin, who works as a beautician, said. "I still don't consider myself a political wife. Some days we sit there at dinner and I'll say, 'You're the mayor of this city?' We'll like drive through the city, through the tunnel, and I'll be like, 'You're in charge of all that?' It's crazy."

Ravenstahl's critics say it's not just crazy, it's bad for the city.

"Nobody, anywhere in the country is sitting in a big office going, I was gonna move the factory to Cleveland, but I saw that Opie boy, he's the Mayor of Pittsburgh, so we're going to Pittsburgh," stand-up comic and radio talk show host John McIntire said.

McIntire calls him Mayor Opie.

"I flirted with Doogie, and then I actually had people calling into my radio show and vote on Doogie or Opie, and Opie won," he said.

Ravenstahl said he has a thick skin and the insults come with the job. It also helps that he's a Democrat. This city hasn't had a Republican mayor since 1932, but that doesn't mean Ravenstahl has a lock on the job. He faces a tough primary challenge this May, from the guy who used to be known as Pittsburgh's fresh young face, Bill Peduto, a councilman who's butted heads with colleagues over Pittsburgh's financial troubles.

"Two years ago, I ran for Mayor," Peduto said. "I was considered the fresh young face of city government, and they said I was too young to be elected as Mayor. In two years, I've become the city's elder statesman and now I'm too old."

Peduto says, despite the age difference, he's the true progressive candidate and has been endorsed by environmentalists and high-tech leaders. The race could be close, said Mistick.

"They're both smart. In terms of experience and technical knowledge, Bill Peduto is clearly head and shoulders above Luke Ravenstahl," he said. "Luke's not a policy wonk. He's not very experienced in the ways of government, or the world, at age 27, but he does have this image and the excitement he generates, and that's good for our city."

Even Peduto admits that he's not exciting. He's often compared to former Vice President, Al Gore, but he said "Al Gore has more charisma."

While Ravenstahl's got the old-school political instincts: The meet, the greet, the listen, and the photo-op.

"Smart money right now would give it to Luke," Mistick said.

Vote for the Quote of the Week

Frankly, Delano, it's a toss-up

Pull the invisible lever here at Dish and cast your vote for either of these two quotes. Both are from KDKA reporter Jon Delano’s blog called Delano’s Den: A Political Blog:

"Most people seem to be convinced that the media is politically biased, taking sides and pushing their favorite candidates in the big races for public office. Now maybe there's some truth to that in the national media, especially among those cable television news programs. But I don't see it at the local level, at least not among the television stations here in Pittsburgh."

Or

"..are the political blogs just hot air and personal opinion that deserve no special consideration?"

P-G blogs reproduce like rabbits

Are they afraid of becoming the 8 track-tape of media?

Sources say that P-G decision/money makers have been pushing to launch more blogs. This week they introduced three new music blogs: Pop Noise, The Bop Shop and Classical Musings. This brings the number of P-G blogs to 17.

Is this glut of online journals the P-G’s version of the Ethel Merman Disco Album or is the P-G sincerely attempting to draw in reader participation? Marketing ploy or facelift?

Dish awaits a response to these questions posed to a P-G editor this morning. In the meantime, what will be next? The Pot Hole Report?

(Wait, that’s a good idea. The Pot Hole Report is the intellectual property of Pittsburgh Dish. Hands off.)

P-G rocks the Beaver County Jail

Goes all New York Post 'n 'at

Drugs, sex in Beaver County Jail

Post-Gazette headline

Jail report revealed

Beaver County Times headline

Both the P-G and the Beaver County Times ran stories today about the shenanigans inside the Beaver County Jail. Both covered issues of sex, drugs and violence. Good stuff, eh? How can editors not be baited by the raunch?

Seems Times editors either didn't drink enough Red Bull on last night's deadline or misread their masthead as the New York Times. Maybe the Times downplayed the story so as not to burn sources in their backyard. Whatever the reason, The P-G wins Dish's "Headless Body in Topless Bar Award" for squeezing the sexy shiv out of the story.

And you thought PA was screwed up

Don't get too close to Rendell. Just ask this lady.

Sure, we can't keep our highways open when it snows, but at least you can take a picture of Gov. Rendell without getting cuffed.

From Dish pal Paul Bass (click to listen for a Pittsburgh & USAir reference) of the New Haven [Conn.] Independent:

Jan. 8, 2007

According to the police, the taking of this photograph in a public street constituted a criminal act. So now we know how Connecticut has spent "homeland security" dollars sent here since 9/11: to build photo databases of peace activists and set them up for bogus arrests. As we reported Friday, police hauled activist/ journalist Ken Krayeske to jail -- for daring to take this photo of Gov. Jodi Rell at her inaugural parade. Turns out Krayeske, a pacifist, was on a list of potential troublemakers compiled by the state cops. Click here, and scroll to Dan Levine's comment, to read about the post-9/11 program under which state cops sent Krayeske's photo to the parade route. Click here and here for stories about this outrage by Independent Capitol correspondent Christine Stuart, including an updated version of her original story the original police report added and a lively debate underneath. And click here to join a caption contest on Krayeske's website. Click here to read a Hartford Courant article in which an eyewitness contradicts the official police version of the incident. ... and Doug Hardy, an associate editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester, backs Krayeske in a passionate letter here.

For more stories on Krayeske, including a (late) response from the Society of Professional Journalists, click here.

P-G deal saves millions

Contract to put screws to Dish and other local sites

The Post-Gazette and the Newspaper Guild have reached a tentative three-year contract that will save the company between $27. 5 million to $31 million.

Facing a loss of $21 million, the company originally sought $51 million in concessions. The “give back” contract works out to roughly 6 percent in total losses. Wages will be frozen for the length of the contract, health co-pays will increase and unlimited sick days will reduce to eight.

One of the items aimed at raising revenue will affect Pittsburgh Dish and other hyperlocal journalism sites. The agreement mentions that the PG and the union will launch online citizens’ journalism newspapers “to get the ‘hyperlocal’ focus that newspapers believe will help them sell targeted ads to mom-and-pop stores.”

Great, so the P-G will cut into what Dish and other local journalism sites have been struggling to do with no budgets and no staff. We always knew we were tools.

P-G contract on horizon

Pay cut and concessions part of deal

The Post-Gazette and the Newspaper Guild have apparently reached a tentative agreement on a contract. According to Dish sources, the pact calls for a 7 percent salary cut coupled with other concessions. While Dish feels for P-G scribes, we must say that we are absolutely thrilled that the Tribune-Review will not be the only piece of fishwrap chronicling Pittsburgh. (Trib folks, it's not you, it's Scaife.)

Many newspaper companies expect profits around or even upwards of 20-percent. Dish has heard that this is not the case at the P-G, which gives us hope that the Block family, the paper's owners, will continue to support the excellent journalism produced by the paper's reporters, editors, photographers and designers. Any business owner, obviously, is entitled to make a profit, but it seems that the Blocks balance their right to line their pockets with the mission of journalism: To inform, enlighten, entertain and, in the case of columnist Ruth Ann Dailey, annoy the hell out of.

Mr. and Mrs. Dish, both newspaper veterans, once worked for a newspaper owned by the Chicago-based Tribune Co. which is circling the drain (if you care about this stuff, take a look at Jim Romanesko's Poynter Institute website) and is for sale. Other chains and independently owned papers are also commode-bound, with layoffs becoming the industry norm. Be thankful that, though its employees had to sacrifice, the P-G will continue to arrive on your doorstep each morning (provided neighborhood miscreants don't make off with it). Dish advises you to also check out Tony Norman's column regarding the value of newspapers in today's P-G.

A tribute

Mourning a sportswriter.

Our friend's father died last week. We didn't know Thomas McCormack very well, but we do know his son, Tucker, a fine journalist, teacher, enjoyer of Guinness, Dish commenter and Connecticut-born, Connecticut-residing Steelers fan. The wonderfully-written New Haven Register story below told us a great deal about our friend's dad, and it also revealed where Tucker got his, um, how to put this ... let's just say, "personality," which consists of good humor, keen intelligence and sheer lunacy. We're running this piece as a tribute to Tucker and his dad. And as Tucker told us last night, if you love your father, tell him.

Missing the laughter most of all

by Dave Solomon, New Haven Register Columnist

I sit here with a heavy heart, laughing. The more I think about Tom McCormack — who passed away early Friday morning at the age of 77 — the sadder I get, and the more I laugh.

It’s a difficult thing to explain, unless you knew this beacon of sports writing in New Haven. If you did, you need no explanation.

As Jim Litke, the national sports columnist for the Associated Press so aptly put it, "Tom McCormack was what sports writing looks like."

In the flesh.

He was gruff and grizzled for show, and then a switch would go off and he’d make you feel like a million bucks. He was an exasperating and stubborn man at times, a mischievous man, a deeply caring man, and most of all, a vulnerable man.

Two seconds after he howled at you for misspelling a name or being redundant — as well he should have — you watched him inhale a cupcake in a single bite, or spill coffee on deadline, and by God, you laughed until you cried.

Litke was fresh out of the prestigious University of Missouri School of Journalism in the mid-1970s when he arrived at the Register. One night, not unlike any other one, McCormack asked Litke to write a headline. Unsure of the specs, Litke questioned McCormack about his marching orders.

"Missouri bleeping Journalism School," roared McCormack, the self-made man. "I could get an interior bleeping decorator from The Sudan and he’d know how to do that."

Thirty years later, Litke calls McCormack the best desk man he has ever worked with; called his three years in New Haven some of the most fun years of his career; and worshipped Tom McCormack, as so many others have, to this day.

McCormack was a voracious reader of politics, history and sports. He knew more about the Warren Commission than Chief Justice Earl Warren, and he was positively reproachful when I failed to read some of the learned books he lent me over the years.

He could speak intelligently on just about any topic, and even when he couldn’t, it was hard to tell. No one could embellish a story like Tom McCormack. His novel, Strictly Amateur, was a compelling read.

He was outlandishly funny, sometimes with that intention, other times just because he was. We all imitate his gravelly voice and his hilarious one-liners ... and when I say we, I suspect the number is in the hundreds. It’s become a cottage industry to talk like Tom McCormack.

Tom invented "Not now! Kind of busy!" often reserved for intruding to the Register newsroom. When he got into his zone, you knew to stay out.

Then, suddenly, he would pop out and be as playful as a cub.

Jeff Smith, assistant sports editor at the Hartford Courant, remembers in his first weeks at the Register, 21 years old at the time, how McCormack came up behind him and started turning his head this way and that.

"The doorknob to a wealthy man’s home," bellowed McCormack, splitting the side of everyone within earshot.

Watching McCormack eat was a treat in itself. He adored Entenmann’s powdered anything and inhaled it with the excitement of a young boy after his first kiss. He also had a compulsive worship of Frank Sinatra. Longtime colleague Paul Marslano suggests that the only time McCormack was silent for a long stretch of time is when the two of them saw Ol’ Blue Eyes at the New Haven Coliseum. After the concert, over coffee, Tom recited Sinatra’s monologue almost verbatim.

You’d come back from an event, be it a Southern Connecticut State football game or the Super Bowl, and the first thing he wanted to know was what kind of food they served, or what restaurants you went to. His own taste ran more toward Sizzler’s Steak House for dinner and Waffle House for a hearty breakfast.

For a decade, I had to keep him abreast of who was rubbing elbows with whom at New York Giants football games. When I came back with juicy information, he listened like I was delivering commandments — and I can assure you that getting him to listen was a most difficult proposition.

When tuned out, he would fight you on the premise that two and two make four. Yet, 10 minutes later, when you said something silly, like two and two make four, his eyes would open wide, his grin would get toothy, and he’d announce:"I thought so!"

Donna Doherty, who started her journalism career as a Register sports writer — before moving on to editor at Tennis magazine and is now back with the Register as arts editor — insists that McCormack taught her to swear. The demure "Miss Dee," as Tom would call the first female sports writer at the newspaper, never thought to use some of the colorful language that somehow became so endearing when out of the mouth of Tom McCormack.

One day, when Tom gave her a particularly difficult time over a story, Doherty let loose with a whole new language skill set she has since adopted quite nicely.

"I called him a (blankety blank), and he positively beamed," Doherty giggled. Tom loved it when you played his game.

Once in a baseball scorebook, he wrote the notation BFL, which later drew the inquiry of a curious sports writer. It turned out that the "B" and the "L" stood for bases loaded, and let’s just say that Bucky Dent’s middle name in Boston was the middle initial. It’s how he kept score.

It must be 25 years since a man called the Register wanting to know the Knicks’ score. McCormack picked up the phone and spat, "106," and hung up. There are still people laughing about that story at the Register.

That was the mischievous side of McCormack, and sometimes it got him in hot water. The very first night that McCormack became a sports writer in New Haven, recalled McCormack’s former Register colleague and acclaimed author Leigh Montville, Tom was fascinated by the pneumatic tubes — the type that are most often seen at drive-in lanes at banks. That’s how copy used to be sent to the composing room in the old days. Well, Tom’s fascination turned to a keen curiosity when he sent an autographed baseball into the tube. Sucked it right in like a vacuum cleaner ... and it got stuck.

He was certain he’d be searching for a new job the next day.

Fortunately for many who have followed him, that was not the case.

Bob Duffy, the Boston Globe sports writer who walked in off the street into the Register at the age of 18, says Tom was like a father to him ... "like a profane father," Duffy laughed. "But he was absolutely my mentor. He showed me how a newspaperman operates."

Peter Richmond, author of "Camden Yards," among several other books, would tell you the same. So would Duffy and Doherty and Litke and Seth Davis, and yours truly.

The way he landed at the Register was perhaps the most quirky Tom McCormack story of all. He was working at the Daily News as a printer when couple of the guys decided to go out for breakfast after the paper was put to bed. For whatever reason, they decided to drive into Connecticut for breakfast. The Merritt Parkway soon turned into the Wilbur Cross Parkway and the Wilbur Cross Parkway turned into the Berlin Turnpike before they settled down to eat.

But on the way home, the car McCormack was riding in was involved in a horrific crash near the West Rock tunnel, and McCormack ended up at the Hospital of Saint Raphael. It’s where he met his wonderful wife Marilyn, a nurse, and fell in love. Tom often talked about, and adored, his three sons, Gary, Bobby and Tucker.

He never left New Haven for very long after that and soon began to work at the Register.

The rest is never history where Tom is concerned because if you skip the details, you’re missing stories that define the man for whom the Coliseum press box was named.

For whatever Tom was, at the top of the list was vulnerable, lovingly vulnerable.

One day, Tom arrived at work following a shopping spree at Caldor’s. He wore a "mahvelous" dress shirt that must have set him back $5. Well, during the course of the evening in the slot — which is essentially the quarterback of the nightly operation, minus the glory — he noticed that his fingers were turning blue.

He was alarmed and everyone within three city blocks of the old Register building on Orange Street knew it. He called Marilyn for advice, and she told him to go right to Saint Raphael’s.

"Puzzling," is what the doctor thought after taking a look at his fingers. "Get this man an EKG." Tom proceeded to take his shirt off when everyone and everything around him stopped cold.

McCormack’s chest bled more blue than the Connecticut flag from the dye of the shirt.

Oh, how generations of McCormack lovers have howled at that one.

He was also hugely stubborn and when filling in for me on a Giants road trip to St. Louis — in the days before the Cardinals moved — he was warned that Busch Stadium had a press box that was open to the elements and could get extremely cold.

McCormack, citing the fact that St. Louis was on the same latitude as Richmond, Va., paid no attention and showed up in his well-worn powder blue Izod sweater on a frigid Sunday afternoon in St. Louis. At the risk of hypothermia, he spent much of the game shivering in the men’s room when Wellington Mara walked in.

"What’s the matter, Tom? Are you all right?" asked the late Giants owner.

Tom explained that it’s not supposed to be this cold in St. Louis because, by God, it’s on the same latitude as Richmond. We’re pretty sure that Mara had a hearty chuckle, too.

Tom, of all people, was at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park in mid-sentence when the earthquake struck in the start of Game 3 of the World Series in 1989. He did a brilliant job of incorporating his genius for politics, emergency services and sports into some of the finest deadline journalism I’ve ever seen.

If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, then there are hundreds of you who will think of Tom today and tell one of his stories. You’ll do it in his voice, you’ll do it with a heavy heart, and you’ll do it with a laugh. The laugh is a gift from Tom.

Photos: Tom McCormack (above); Dish Sports Gal Jody DiPerna, Tucker and Frank outside a Steelers bar in NYC.

Catfight brewing over celebrity photo

Trib photog cries foul shot.

On Friday, the Post-Gazette ran a story chronicling Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's recent tour of Fallingwater. The accompanying photo shows Hollywood's beautiful couple posing with the famous house behind them off in the distance.

Local bloggers and members of Flickr, a photography website, attacked the authenticity of the photo, suspecting the couple was Photoshopped in. Many pointed to crude lines around Pitt’s jacket and head, as well as a mark on Jolie’s hood (see above photo) .

One of the Flickr commenters is Dean Beattie, Chief Digital Imaging Specialist for the Tribune-Review. You can hear his fingernails scraping against 34 Blvd. of the Allies. He wrote:

I realize that everyone is having some fun with this little image, but, there is a greater issue here. Anyone take a guess as to what it is? The fact "One Of America's Greatest Papers" ran an altered image. tsk tsk P-G. And it is an absolute wonder why no one trusts the media. I guess it's all good though, the P-G is headed out the door anyway.

The P-G immediately became aware of readers’ suspicions after they published a story last Thursday. An updated version was posted the next day in which the photo’s authenticity was validated. P-G’s Patricia Lowry wrote:

Shortly after the story hit the Post-Gazette's Web site yesterday -- where it quickly zoomed to the top of the most e-mailed stories list -- e-mails began pouring in from readers convinced the photograph of the pair standing in front of Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic house was a fake.

For the record, it isn't.

No way! I took that photo myself, and I am proud of it!" Ms. [Cara] Armstrong, [Fallingwater's curator of education] said.

This morning, after Dish contacted the Post-Gazette for a comment on the authenticity of the photo and providing a link to the Flickr discussion page, the visible black lines around Pitt’s jacket disappeared (see below photo). As did the mark on Jolie’s hood.

Dish has not heard from P-G editors.

After viewing the image, a photo editor for a Connecticut newspaper said the photo is "somewhat suspicious."

"The foreground lighting doesn't appear to be consistent with the background lighting and the background seems to be too sharply in focus if the photographer were focusing on them,” he says. But he stated that he’d like to see a larger version.

Whether or not the P-G image was doctored, photo integrity and ethics has been a hot topic of journalism debates. In response to the dust ups, the 27 year-old Society for News Design adopted code of ethical standards for the first time last August.

Digital manipulation of photos is commonplace for Arts & Entertainment photos (aka the slenderizing “digital diet” of celebs). However, news photos are held to higher standards. But will alterating fluff photos lead to fiddling with hard news photos?

Flickr commentor Patrick Kent believes only the the Fallingwater photo's exposure was fixed. But, he writes, even an altered photo of Hollywood celebrities addresses a larger issue:

"See how a somewhat shoddy job of simply correcting exposure in a picture can lead people to question its veracity, and therefore the veracity of the accompanying story. That can be a problem.”

Trib takes on trannies

Scaife decries those who are different.

In an editorial today, the Trib lashes NYC's treatment of transpeople. See if you can follow the logic:

Meaningless Sex

Sex means nothing and everything in New York City.

The board of health in Fun City is on the verge of allowing people born there to change the documented sex on their birth certificates. He/she would've had to change his/her name and offer proof he/she had lived in his/her adopted gender for at least two years.

That, and affidavits from a doctor and a mental health professional explaining why the patient should be considered a permanent member of the opposite sex, will do the trick.

Surgery is not required if one has the proper attitude about sex in the city. For example, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority last month allowed customers to define their gender when deciding to use the men's or women's restrooms.

New York City deserves almost as much ridicule as the 47 states that allow those who had sex-change surgery to interchange "M" and "F" on their birth certificates.

Ohio, Idaho and Tennessee rightly refuse to accept the proposition that a fact -- like a newborn's gender -- can be changed. But when truth can be altered everywhere else by cut or by carriage, why bother with science when there is government whim and chromosomes when there are affidavits? Why should man think when he can feel?

Since age also can be a state of mind, how soon before a youthful 50-something in the Big Apple demands to change his birth date?

Dish adds: However borrowing your older sister's license to get into Halo to beg Big Ben to sign your underage rack is perfectly acceptable.

Wanted: Local talent

Bring out your dead.

Do you fancy fake blood? The producers of Something to Be Desired, an ongoing web-based series filmed in Pittsburgh, are looking for a few good ghouls. The group is filming a Halloween-themed episode on Sun., Oct 15 and Sun. Oct 22 in Bellevue, and they require zombies. Since Pittsburgh is the capital of Zombiedom, unearthing the undead shouldn't be too much of a chore.

Here's what you need:

1. Proof of age (over 18, please).
2. Clothing you don't mind never wearing again (fake blood tends to stain)
3. The willingness to amuse yourself safely between shots
4. Common sense (we'll be filming in a warehouse, so safety is key)
5. Transportation to and from Bellevue.

For more information and directions, please email zombies@somethingtobedesired.com

(Please include what day(s) you're available. This is a first-come, first-zombified notice.)

There is no pay. Compensation includes exposure on an international webseries plus free coffee and/or fake blood.

Makeup artists will be on-hand to convert the willing into the undead. Volunteer zombies will not be required to attend both shoots, though you're certainly welcome to.

Check out the series at www.SomethingToBeDesired.com.

Sienna Miller learns ...

...only Pittsburghers can insult Pittsburgh. Film producers barraged with outraged 'Burgers.

Update: Though Dish reported the story about the city's outrage before the national media (OK,so we're not above gloating), read the AP follow-up on Miller's mea culpa after dumping on Pittsburgh. The writer reinforces Miller's perspective in the last four paragraphs. Hey, why talk about the good things when you can side with a starlet?

And we thought we were being such good hosts.

Sources say the production office of the film "Mysteries of Pittsburgh," has been swarmed with calls this morning, outraged by actress and victim of nanny-based infidelity Sienna Miller's comments in the latest issue of Rolling Stone. Her hurtful words were reported in the P-G this morning. To deal with the fallout, a room at the William Penn hotel is being prepared for an afternoon press conference.

In the RS article, Miller calls Pittsburgh "shit," though the author claims the second-tier actress rarely left her hotel room. Miller plays a supporting role in the film adaptation of novelist Michael Chabon's best seller.

Chabon, also the author of Wonder Boys, which was also turned into a Pittsburgh-shot movie, earned his BA at the University of Pittsburgh and MFA at UC-Irvine. To Dish's knowledge, he never compared the city to solid animal waste.

P-G reporter John Hayes, who sought reaction from the Rolling Stone piece's author, wrote:

"Can you believe this is my life?" Miss Miller later asks Rolling Stone contributing editor Jenny Eliscu, over a plate of garlic-parmesan Buffalo wings at a Pittsburgh hotel bar. "Will you pity me when you're back in your funky New York apartment and I'm still in Pittsburgh? I need to get more glamorous films."

Miller has be on a two-week (or should we say fortnight so as not to sound like dumb Pittsburghers) hiatus to her London apartment during filming and is expected to return today. One outraged caller reportedly said, "Where are you filming? We want to throw pierogies at her."

Dish suggests mashed potato and onion for this purpose. Regarding "more glamorous films," Dish suggests better talent.

But in all seriousness, Sienna, why don't you stop by the Monterey Pub on the North Side for an Imp and Ahrn? We'll show you why they call this place Paris on the Mon.

More Sienna shenanigans here.

Media hounds hounds

Bucs upstaged by barks.

About 200 panting pooches paraded into PNC Park last night for the first-ever “Pup Night at PNC Park” (among them Shirley the Docile, Dish’s delightful doggie) and for every 20 dogs there were at least two weary press photographers wishing something blew up across town.

The “Balls, not another yippy little shit in a Pirates shirt” glaze washed over them shortly after 7:30 p.m., about two- and-a-half hours into the event. Media shutterbugs wandered aimlessly through the swelling crowd on Federal Street—where the event kicked off with pre-game activites at 5 p.m.—hoping to avoid yet another portrait of inappropriate sniffing and indelicate self bathing. Overly tanned blonde women holding little dogs—especially dressed in frilly outfits or stuffed into Paris Hilton-type carriers—stole the media spotlight (and the crown from Shirley in the beauty contest. Yes, Dish entered her in a beauty contest. Gotta problem with that?).

The event was both a fundraiser for Animal Friends (Shirley’s alma mater) and a ploy for Pirates’ marketing team to curry favor with suckers like Dish. Motives aside, Pup Night proved a wagging success and dogs got their doo in the media.

(As for Shirley the Docile: She was spotted on the Jumbotron at around 10:30 by friends seated near the third baseline and Parents of Dish (PODs) spotted her on KDKA).

Photos: (top) Cora watches the Bucs not lose; Jayke, P-G's poster pooch; Shirley and Mr. Dish (hoping his pro-spay/neuter shirt that reads "I'm Fixed How About You?" might win a few votes) vie for the crown

Burgh media update

Who bit the big one and who just bites.

Deek Magazine, a printed compendium of extremely well-written musings, art reviews and navel-gazing snark bit the big one as did The Front Weekly (so it seems). Deek bid farewell to readers on its website and provides further contact information here, hinting that one of its former staffers is interested in a start-up publication.

Deek's former editor Matt Stroud purposefully kept a box on Forbes Avenue in Oakland empty, which cultivated alternatives to traditional letters to the editor.

"We keep it empty for tactical purposes," said Stroud. "When the rack is full, we get little feedback; when it's empty, everyone wants to talk. Also, we keep it empty because empty racks encourage Pittsburghers to donate presents--old food, change and beer cans." Sadly Deek folded before finding a wimple, a pound of salt cod and a bucket of chum.

The Front, the little paper that tried, quietly (mysteriously?) disappeared (vaporized?) and all that remains is its sad little outdated website which serves as the ruins of a doomed-from-the-start enterprise (Hint: Decent wages attract decent writers and spellcheck is a handy dandy tool). Dish tried to contact FW but the phone number has been change to a new number with no voicemail.

Pop City Media, a "weekly e-magazine and Web site showcasing the positive and sustained transformation of the Pittsburgh region" weaseled into Pittsburgh media environs this month. PCM is an unabashed pro-Pittsburgh site that is funded to the gills. The P-G reports:

"Popcity, which costs about $200,000 to run, is funded by sponsors who pledge somewhere between $15,000 and $40,000 to have their names listed on the Web site. Sponsors include the Urban Redevelopment Authority, The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, law firm Houston Harbaugh and the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, which has pledged $5,000 for the first three months."

Popcity, though trying to be folksy and bloglike, reads like a slick brochure fanned out on a glass coffee table in a real estate development office. Sites like iheartpgh, fueled by sincerity rather than greed, feels like the editors are sitting in a coffee shop sharing personal snapshots of Pittsburgh. The editor of Popcity sells upscale lofts.

Media. Ain't it a gas?

The whodunnit whodunnit

A college newspaper quiz for yunz.

There are three major universities in Pittsburgh; Pitt, Carnegie Mellon and Duquesne. (Memo to Point Park: You're getting there. Think about a name change next. Something with more gravitas. Also, send some of your dancing gals out to intern at the local nekkid lady clubs. Just a suggestion.)

In any event, Dish has always liked colleges (for much beer is consumed at them) and newspapers (working for them has paid for most of Dish's post-college beer) and also holds a strong affinity for police blotters (an easier thing to do when you haven't been in them, allowing a personal-reflection-free chuckle at the misfortune of others). With an eye toward combining these interests, Dish brings you the University Newspaper Police Blotter Quiz. (Don't read too far ahead. The answers are down there.)

Dish has selected items from recent editions of the Pitt News, CMU's The Tartan and Duquesne's Papal Paper (not real name). Your task is to identify which set of miscreant chronicles come from which institution of higher learning. Keep your eyes on your own paper. Proceed.

Mystery Newspaper #1:

9:29 a.m.-A custodial supervisor reported that he saw an unauthorized person in a custodial closet in the Pink Pussycat Lounge. The person was gone before officers arrived. The incident was cleared.

12:15 p.m.-Cooking activities at the Nipsey Russell house activated the fire alarm system. The incident was cleared.

11:31 p.m. - A person turned over a found diploma. The item was placed in recovered property. The incident was cleared.

10:13 p.m. -A staff member in the Shecky Greene Union reported damage to a telephone. The incident was cleared.

Mystery Newspaper #2:

Fire

25 April 2006 at 01:04

University Police responded to a report of the odor of smoke in Phyllis Diller Hall. The police determined the source of the smoke to be room B306. A student was working on a project inside the room. University Police determined that the project did not appear to be interfering with the fire alarm system.

Alcohol Amnesty

26 April 2006 at 22:46

University Police responded to a call for help in Totie Field's House. Upon arrival, police found the individual intoxicated. The police made sure the individual was awake and breathing before giving alcohol amnesty.

Suspicious Person

26 April 2006 at 23:15

A complainant called University Police and said that a suspicious man followed the complainant into Huntz Hall. The complainant said the suspicious person was not doing anything wrong, but did not feel he belonged in the building. The actor was described as an older white male, heavyset, and wearing a baseball hat with a Steelers logo.

Mystery Newspaper #3:

Police Briefs has seen a lot of things. Gruesome things, hilarious things, erotic things. PB thought it has seen it all. It hasn’t. This week marked an unbelievable crime that PB couldn’t fathom. Someone in Towers paid for pizza with counterfeit money. You read that right. Counterfeit cash.

Beyond the questions of where it was procured and in what denominations, PB can’t help but question the intelligence of the perpetrator. Aside from bank tellers, pizza delivery guys handle more cash than just about anyone else. Why not spend the cash somewhere that never gets any business, like a House of Unyielding Psychological Torture or an independent bookstore?

Aside from the exotic crime of phony currency, there was a little excitement elsewhere on campus this week. Two students got involved in a neck-grabbing, kick-you-while-you’re-down brawl in the Joey Bishop Library. The cause of the dispute has not been released, but PB has heard through its reliable sources that the students were arguing about whose brilliant idea it was to give counterfeit money made in the library photocopier to the pizza guy.

Finally, a small amount of marijuana was found in a car on Vickroy street. Unbeknownst to police at the time, the car itself was actually made out of black tar heroin. And counterfeit money. And evil. And WMDs. And Dick Cheney.

ANSWERS:

(1): The University of Pittsburgh, where no item is too small to be committed to print. Frequently features a lively chronicle of Hillman Library's public masturbators.

(2): Carnegie Mellon University. Pretense drips from this blotter. Enjoy your careers on the stage or at some megalithic engineering firm. Leave the newspaper crap to those of us who aren't wanker-y enough to use the European style for writing dates and don't consider middle-aged Steelers fans to be suspicious persons.

(3): Duquesne University. Haven't had a successful basketball team since shortly after James Naismith first hung a peach basket in a Springfield, Mass., gym. However, the snark mixed with the sneering judgement of those whom CMU scribes would term "actors" wins the Good Catholics of the Bluff and Dish's admiration (and an offer to write for us. For free. We could use a college correspondent. Seriously.)

A new kind of film office?

Local film industry heavy hitters propose changes at the Pittsburgh Film Office. Keezer's kiester kaput?

Dish received the following letter, addressed to County Honcho Dan Onorato, Mayor O'Connor, and cc'd to Governor Rendell. It is signed by casting folks, producers, actors, and myriad other film folk. We'll let the thing speak for  itself.

July 24, 2006

The Honorable Dan Onorato, Chief Executive, Allegheny County

County Court House, Grant Street

Pittsburgh, PA 15219

The Honorable Bob O’Connor

Mayor, City of Pittsburgh

City-County Building

Pittsburgh, PA 15219

Dear Mr. Onorato and Mr. O’Connor:

It is with great consideration and a very strong sense of resolve that we, the community of filmmakers and film industry professionals in Western Pennsylvania, call on you to join us in support of a bold new approach to nurturing film production in Western Pennsylvania.

As you can see from the weight and volume of the undersigned, we comprehensively represent the most significant local stakeholders in this matter. But if that were not enough, you will find here endorsements from some of the most powerful interests in Hollywood as well. Collectively, unanimously and with a clear sense of purpose, we call on you to support the creation of a new kind of film office that will represent the best interests of the citizens of Western Pennsylvania. This will most likely require that public money be redirected from the current Film Office and towards our new, comprehensive initiative.

In other words, as we propose a fresh and effective direction for this economic development program, we simultaneously state our complete and total lack of confidence in the Pittsburgh Film Office to fulfill its mission and its purpose. It lacks any ability whatsoever to represent the best interests of the citizens in this region.

We ask that you support us locally, and in the Governor’s office, so that our positive call for a new and effective organization can be supported with public funding to accomplish that which is now hardly being accomplished at all. There are a number of qualified non-profits in place that stand by ready to house this new program, a program that will clearly serve a broader set of interests and return more money to this region.

We also propose a more representative governance structure and an organization that not only courts the business of Hollywood, but proactively nurtures the local, indigenous film community that already exists, so that they are not forever dependent on the vain whims of outside interests.

The film industry is speaking out with a single voice to ask that public support be redirected to a new entity that better serves the community, the field, and the international reputation of Western Pennsylvania. Respectfully, we call on you to join us in our endeavor.

Sincerely,

Charlie Byrnes, International Representative, Teamsters

Eric Gold, Producer, Manager

Patricia Buckley, Casting Assistant

Robert Buncher, President of IATSE, Local 480

Diane Collins, Costume Designer/Wardrobe Supervisor

David Conrad, Actor, Filmmaker

Bruce Crocker, Missus and Trixie Films

Midian Crosby, Special Effects and Make-up

Laura Davis, Producer/Steeltown Advisor

Kent Edwards, Former Board Member for PFO/Board Member of Pgh Filmmakers

John Haer, Director of AFTRA

Charlie Humphry, Executive Director of Pgh Filmmkaers

Ellen Kander, Co founder Steeltown Entertainment

Ken Kellers, Leadman

Canice Kennedy, Casting Director

Chris Lacey, AFTRA

Amy Lamb, Executive Producer of Lumiere Films

Maxine Lapidus, Executive Producer

Amy Marasalisa, Actor/Producer

Melissa Martin, Missus and Trixie Films

Crispin May, Camera Assistant

Catherine McConnell, Former Board member for PFO

Terri Minsky, Writer/Producer

Eugene Pile, Construction Coordinator

Richard Rauh, Prof. of Film at Point Park College/Actor

Greg Rempel, Writer/Director, Company X Entertainment

Joey Rocket, Graphic Artist/Photographer, Specter Studio

Cameron Romero, President of Batpack Studios/Director

Marty Schiff, Producer/Executive Director

Janet Smith, Producer, Trifocal State Theatre, Center of the Arts

Marlene Speranza, Costumer, CMU Costume Shop

Mamie Kay Stein, Props and Set Dresser and Buyer

William Strickland Jr. , President and CEO of Bidwell, Training Center and Manchester Craftsman’s Guild

Jamie Widdoes, Director

Michael Zinobile, Grip

Andrea Davis, Steeltown Entertainment

Todd Eckert, Director/Producer

Adrienne Wehr, Missus & Trixie Films

Diana Stoughton, IATSE Local 489

Sally Lapiduss, Producer/Writer, Los Angeles

Cc: Governor Rendell

Cc: Governor Rendell

The P-G with a banjo on its knee

If ignorance is bliss, then the editor(s) responsible for this headline from Linden, Alabama must be enraptured. And before any of you start beating that "Southerners is so dumb" drum, Dish is taking the high road on this one, tolerating none of that nonsense.  Nope, instead, Dish has decided to present today's P-G headlines, as seen through the moonshine-induced haze experienced by the aforementioned barefoot Rebel flag-waving inbred hayseed editor. –M.G.

By Joe Miksch, Mike Gillis and Jody DiPerna

From A-1:

"Senate border bill near passage,”

Could be: "White people soon to harvest own produce."

"Dress Like a mess for success"

More accurate: "I could not be less cool or more uninteresting if I tried"

"DA says no charges over 'Top 25' list"

How about: 'Top 25' list OK by DA; Says, 'Well, Mindy does have large cans'"

From the Local section:

"The doctor is (still!) in: Oakland physician celebrates 60 years on the job."

Should read: Old coot doc treats cancer with leeches: Calls antibiotics 'passing fad.'

"Ho-hum! Yet another 1-run loss for Pirates: Familiar script plays out again as Diamondbacks sweep series with 8-7 win against Zach Duke"

More appropriate: Fuck it.

______________________________________________________________________________

P-G “Man convicted of shooting wife over dirty dishes."