Pittsburgh Dish

Pittsburgh to ban outdoor sofas

City residents forced to recline on beds of nails

OK, headline in the March 12 Post-Gazette:

City Council to vote on ban on couches, mattresses on porches

So, after the Steelers won the Super Bowl in early February, a bunch of boozed-fueled collegiate knuckleheads set a few sofas ablaze in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood. Unquestionably, this is bad behavior. Dangerous, even.

In response, Pittsburgh City Council comes up with this masterful plan:

All of the council members present voted for legislation banning mattresses, box springs, sofas and upholstered chairs from non-enclosed porches, primarily to prevent the celebratory burning of such items, as has happened repeatedly in Oakland.

After showing council video of couches, ignited in the streets of Oakland after the Steelers Super Bowl win and during a street festival, Councilman Bruce Kraus urged his colleagues not to repeat last week's postponement of his legislation.

"Rome is burning, and we just wasted a week," he said, shortly after showing video of a blazing couch on Semple Street. "One idiot that decides to place an accelerant on the wood of that porch, and that whole row of houses could go up."

Aside from the fact that Bruce Kraus did something beyond hyperbole with his Rome comparison, he and his fellow council members ignore a few things:

1) College students and drunks are resourceful. If necessary, they will remove a sofa and/or loveseat from their home in order to torch it in celebratory glee.

2) This is not Morgantown, W.V.

3) An entire shitload of stuff is flammable.

4) What is this, Red China?

5) This is America, goddamnit.

6) And while it's not Pittsburgh's fault, Jarts have already been banned. We need our dangerous entertainment.

7) My couch is heavy and it will be difficult to bring it indoors.

8) Pittsburgh is already at war with potholes and snow. Opening a third front will result in carnage.

So take it easy, City Council. If you want to ban something, though, please consider the local misuse of the word "ignorant."

(Other towns have considered banning outdoor sofas. Go here and here.) 

Sister City advice?

Spooky parallels

New Haven, Conn. (Dish's old stomping ground) is considering setting up a 311 complaint hotline like the one in Pittsburgh. New Haven Independent editor Paul Bass (Mrs. Dish's pal & former taskmaster) talks about the program today in his "News from the Compost Heap" vlog. Has Pittsburgh's 311 hotline been successful? Let him know in comments.

Also, Bass reports on New Haven's first ever Zombie Fest charity walk this weekend which was inspired by the Burgh and organized by Dish photog Jeff Glagowski. Have any goulish advice for their walk?

CMU coed cohabitation

An angry old man's perspective

So, Carnegie Mellon University's going to let the boys and girls share a room on campus. Well, isn't that lovely? Convenient coitus for everyone!

Back in my day, if a fella wanted to get a little hay for his donkey, he had to leave the dorm. Even in the winter, a young buck interested in sowing his wild oats (back in my day, we mixed metaphors anyway we damn well pleased), had to leave Residence Hall A and walk across campus, uphill, in six feet of snow, with a live Grizzly on his back, bereft of footwear and with a sign around his neck reading, "Why, yes, I am heading to Residence Hall B to make illicit out-of-wedlock love to Wendy Battlemeyer, who's 4'11'', 349 lbs. and has less-than-clear complexion. Oh, yes, the odors ... Why do you ask? Is it the bear? Of course I'm drunk."

And when the deed was done, we had to do the walk-of-shame under circumstances similar to those delineated above: snow, shoeless and uphill (both effing ways!), but with a couple of important differences. The bear was replaced with 27 angry stoats, carried in one's trousers, and the sign now read, "Yes, I did Wendy Battlemeyer. Man, am I hungover. That's just a cold sore."

Now, on CMU's Oakland campus, revved up young adults will be able to do dirty things with each other's nasty bits while having to expend no more effort than simply strolling across the suite. Today's generation of students are a spoiled and soft lot. Never will they know the unholy terror resultant from accidentally locking themselves out of their dorm room shoeless and frostbitten, exhausted from having surmounted the omnipresent hill, besigned and stoat-mauled.

Pansises. Feh!

Sincerely,

An Angry Old Man

P.S. And while you’re at it, stay off my lawn.

A decision? You bet!

The Gaming Control Board's about to make the call. What are the odds?

UPDATE: We were totally wrong. It's PITG. Still, read our predictions. They are marginally amusing.

We'll tell you. At this late date, within an hour of the GCB's announcement, Dish has obtained the odds, freshly posted in Vegas, for each of the three contenders hoping to make serious bank off the citizens of Pittsburgh and its environs.

Pull that lever and hope for three bars.

Forest City Enterprises (the Station Square proposal):
About that of a one-legged man winning an ass kicking contest.

PITG Gaming (the North Shore folk):
Equivalent to a snowball maintaining its frosty integrity within the less-than-chummy confines of the sulfurous pit known as Clairton. Just kidding, Hell.

Isle of Capri (Mario Lemieux's last hope to become a multi-multi-multi-millionaire rather than just a run-of-the-mill multimillionaire):
Nick Perryesque. In the neighborhood of the Pennsylvania Lottery coming up 666 on April 24, 1980.

News Analysis: Keep it in your pants, Lt. Weeniewagger

It's wrong to get drunk and pummel people (who aren't Ravens fans) at Steelers games, even if you are functionally dimwitted.

Lt. Martin Sanders Jr. is in deep kimchee.

The Pittsburgh firefighter was arrested Oct. 15 at Heinz Field during the Steelers/Chiefs tilt after displaying his majestic fire hose d'amour to a concession stand employee and engaging in fisticuffs with several stadium employees, cops, etc. as he was being escorted out of the arena. He faces charges of aggravated assault, a felony, as well as simple assault, indecent exposure, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. If convicted of the felony charge, Sanders will be canned.

Dish, consistent with its mission to be the most helpfulest online newspaper in the entire known universe, will endeavor to set forth guidelines that will assist you, reader, in avoiding Sanders ignominious fate.

The Cardinal Rule: When drinking, it's important to either retain enough of one's sensibility to recognize that displaying your hang-low in public and punching random strangers is not a good idea or to down so much booze that you black out and are rendered harmless. There is no middle ground. Consequences of disobeying The Cardinal Rule:

Do you realize that your mom has to face those gossiping harpies at church? Do you?

People might begin to suspect you have a drinking problem, which not only will be a blight on your reputation but could result in your being sent to rehab. They don't have IC Light in those places.

You could ruin things for the rest of us. The Steelers could stop selling beer at halftime, jerkwheat.

Daycare centers will be reluctant to hire you after you get canned from your firefighting job as you have demonstrated a propensity to display your twig and berries to those who have no interest in them.

You will be the object of derision wherever you go. People don't forget this kind of stuff. Might as well sew a scarlet "WW" on your clothes, weenie wagger.

Art Rooney Sr. just shed a tear in heaven.

Photo below found here.

Pittsburgh pink lung law passes

Mike Gillis says don't stop there.

Good morning, and smoke 'em if you got 'em Pittsburgh.  I can't figure a way to defend smoking or subjecting others to second-hand smoke without sounding like an idiot.  I'm in favor of helmet and seat belt laws, so I guess I'm a hypocrite if I say it's a personal choice to smoke so get out of my business.

This is just the beginning, so buckle up your chin straps-here it comes. New York City officials want to tell chefs what they can and can't use in their recipes. My favorite part is this "...trans fats can easily be replaced with substitute oils that taste the same or better..." Now a government is deciding what tastes good? Let's flesh this out a bit. Since we are incapable of making the right choices, let's come up with a list for our governments:

Mandatory stress tests before entering Morton's or Ruth's Chris.

Proof of healthy cholesterol counts to be kept on file at pizza joints, to be updated annually.

A nation-wide ban on all-you-can-eat buffets.

A two-drink maximum at all bars, restaurants, and private clubs.

No hot dogs at ball games.

National standards of portion control.

Grocery stores will be forced to provide information on our purchases, tracked through those discount cards, and customers will be prohibited from buying unhealthy items once their "limit" has been reached.

I wish I owned a bar in Cranberry or Peters.

O'Connor hates information, curtails Internet use

Mayor replaces employee PCs with pacifiers.

by Mike Gillis

So, the City of Pittsburgh has decided to limit web surfing by employees. Good, you say. Employers have the right to expect that, while on the clock, employees are working. Fair enough. Simple, straight-forward, shoulder-to-the-wheel, an honest day's pay for an honest day's work logic. Who can argue with that? Well, I'm your huckleberry.

I'm not sure where to start. Clearly this is an attempt to shake things up in city government now that Bob O'Connor finally has his chance to run things his way.

We're likely to see many examples of change for the sake of change, like the recent upheaval in the top ranks of the Police Bureau. After all, there's a new sheriff in town, and things are going to be done differently on his watch. Fine. That is Hizzoner's prerogative, and perhaps he's right, given Pittsburgh's recent governmental and fiscal woes. But the decision to limit employees to three, 10-minute windows of web access daily begs several questions.

Has city government work not been getting done? Nowhere have I read or heard that work has been piling up while city employees are shopping at amazon.com or checking stock quotes or downloading gazpacho recipes. If that were the case-if city employees are screwing around and not doing their jobs-take appropriate action. Retrain. Discipline. If necessary, terminate employment. In other words, make managers do their jobs. That's how meaningful change takes place. Implementing a policy which addresses a problem which may or may not exist is foolish and myopic-in other words, business as usual.

If the work is getting done, and city employees are still web-surfing with abandon, then that suggests that there isn't enough to do, right? Does that indicate staff reductions are in order? That employees need to have their job responsibilities broadened? That they should be re-trained and encouraged to take on additional responsibilities?

Nope, of course not. The only clear course of action is to assume that adults are abusing their privileges-that they are incapable of comporting themselves professionally, and that, given the opportunity, will choose to do as little as possible- and then to draft a policy which restricts an individual's ability figuratively to step away from their desks. Not that people need to take a break every now and then. Or need to attend to personal business which can only be done during (drum roll, please) BUSINESS HOURS. Well, guess what? I can guarantee that the work environment will deteriorate rapidly.

People will be expected to show up on time. Exactly on time. Show up too early, you're trying to get ahead. Show up a minute late, get written up. No, it doesn't matter that the T broke down or that your kid threw up on your tie. Late is late, it says so right here on page 33 of your Employee Handbook. Morale will plummet and absenteeism will skyrocket. Walk away from your desk because you wanted a cup of coffee? Get the coffee, but don't ask Bill if he thinks Zack Duke should start the opener. What's that, the coffee's brewing? Get back to your desk and work. What's that-the coffee will be done by the time you get back to your desk, so what's the point? Stop making sense. And it only takes 45 seconds to urinate-what were you doing for the past two minutes? Employees will do precisely what their jobs require and not one scintilla more. And less will get done in more time.

See, this mismanagement decision is an easy one. It's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Never mind the latest drive-by, Mary just got an email from her 13-year-old daughter that she's home safely, AND SHE RESPONDED TO IT!! Productivity!! Bandwidth!! This is the third time this week, and it's only Wednesday. Smithers, drag Mary in here so that I can lecture her for an hour about wasting City time. And then schedule a staff meeting for tomorrow morning at 7:30. Yes, I know that everybody's start time is 8:00 a.m., but this'll show 'em who's boss. The topic will be efficiency in the workplace.

How does limiting surfing help the city budget? It was reported that Pittsburgh pays $1500 a month for web-access. For God's sake, my wife and I pay Comcast $50 bucks a month for high speed Internet. So the City pays as much as 30 Comcast customers monthly? And trimming this amount is somehow going to help the bottom line? OK. In the meantime, Ralph Falbo is being courted by the Mayor as a possible player in the Fifth-Forbes ongoing saga-the same Ralph Falbo who owes over half a million bucks in overdue taxes to local taxing bodies, including the city. How much workplace web surfing does half a million represent, Mr. Mayor?

Like many of us, I worked for a large downtown corporation-a health care insurer with a giant rectal thermometer at the top of it's building-and perhaps that's colored my opinion here. For example, I was in a meeting and someone asked why, as adults, we were not permitted to use a phone to call a doctor or to check on a child. The manager's response-I swear to you-was that the company permitted employees to use one of two public pay phones in the building's lobby at the employee's expense and only during the employee's 45-minute lunch break. So for all of us who have suggested that governments should be run like businesses, well, careful what you ask for.

Happy "Hope I Didn't Give You The Clap" Day

What's love gotta do with it?

by Yvonne Hudson, single gal reporter

My boyfriends have always managed to win my heart just after St. Patrick’s Day and serve my walking papers around Labor Day. I haven’t had a date on a major holiday since Sonny met Cher — unless you count Arbor Day and the World Series play-offs. Most of my girlfriends have collected shiny trinkets of love over the years. Gems and cameras — stuff you can hock. I’ve got a shoebox full of Pirates stubs and a bear wearing a Steelers shirt.

This New Year’s Eve I was the dateless poster girl, all dolled up in a fur stole, a black vintage dress, long gloves, Marilyn Monroe-sized rhinestone earrings and a purse covered in gold macaroni. Lauren put a gimlet in my hand and crowned me with a glittery party tiara. All I needed to complete the picture was a bubble machine and Dean Martin. I could have been sliding off a vinyl bar stool at the Pango-Pango lounge, plunking down nickel after nickel to hear “One More for the Road.”

New Year’s Eve is a pretty frightening holiday to spend alone. I mean, face it, planting a kiss on your best friend’s boyfriend at midnight in a room full of smooching couples is humiliating and, well, pathetic. But it only lasts 30 seconds at best, your pals are tipsy, and the sympathy can be cozy. In the morning, the sting of spending the evening without an escort is dulled by a sparkling wine hangover and your dress wrapped around your head.

I know: You’re already feeling sorry for me. Your mind is racing ahead to Feb. 14, to a sad vision of a dateless deb (me), washed-up and waiting for the florist’s van to pull up. Well, wipe those thoughts right out of your head, chicky. The truth is, I’d rather be single on Valentine’s Day. I’d rather twist open a Champale for one and raise a toast to that unopened box of condoms. I’d rather lock myself in the bathroom and shave my legs while making crank phone calls to ex-boyfriends than be half-a-couple on Valentine’s Day. Because love and Valentine’s Day do not go together.

Think about it: Who suffers more than couples on Valentine’s Day? It should be called Holiday for Break-Ups. It could drive a wedge between Barbie and Ken. It could make Juliet greet Romeo at the door with curlers, cold cream and the business end of a rolling pin. And it’s all because Feb. 14 is the one day of the year when American women (sensitive flowers that we are) can demand, and expect to receive, Everything We’ve Ever Wanted From Our Chosen Male.

It’s a reality vs. fantasy tug-of-war. We can’t help ourselves. When we girls get to thinking about what we really want, it’s as if someone slipped us a mickey. Our heads fill with quixotic notions of cherubs floating down from Loveland to cast spells over our men. Magically they will hate sports. They’ll know how to order wine, drizzle melted chocolate on our tongues, cha-cha. They’ll drape strands of pearls across our pillows while crooning like Mel Tormé. Awakening from our reveries we see, instead, a big lug snoring on the couch, one meaty paw wrapped around a Budweiser.

We realize that our lives aren’t lush and sexy but drab and mundane. This makes us mad. And whom do we blame? Him.

Men, in turn, aren’t really sure what they’re being accused of, but they know they’ll have to pay, and pay big, to get themselves out of it. Retailers love this. Big heart-shaped boxes of chocolates sit in storefront windows, winking at hen-pecked husbands. Jewelers cram their displays with perky little diamonds in the hopes that boys will stumble into their shops and slap down a couple of car payments in an effort to get their pouting girlfriends to speak to them again. And somewhere on the top shelf at Walgreens is a giant, poke-your-eye-out Valentine waiting to be purchased and presented with the 14 little words every girl is yearning to hear: “Honey, you know I love you — it was the biggest one in the store!”

For girls, it’s a day of disappointment. (“Dear Diary: He got me the biggest card in the store. Again. It had a picture of Garfield on it.”) For boys, it’s is a festival of guilt and shotgun sentimentality. At 8 p.m., in every town in every state, there’s a future ex-husband in an El Camino screeching into the handicap spot at Rite-Aid just as the sales clerk is shooing away the last customer and flipping out the lights. Watch our hapless hetero, beads of sweat forming on his upper lip, as he searches for anything heart-shaped, red, left. Vroom, pluck, sign, lick. Off he dashes, wagging his tail as though he’s just won a big-screen TV. “I’ll get laid fer sure,” he thinks, as he races to the finishing line.

He’s wrong, of course. His last-minute heroics, instead of being met with kisses and forgiveness, will be greeted by arctic glares and cold meatloaf. Because his honey, overcome with Valentine-induced dementia, has been dreaming of an oiled hunk who owns his own tuxedo, makes perfect martinis and has a line of credit at Cartier. The kind of man who exists only in Danielle Steele novels, or gay bars. She’s awash in a stew of dashed hopes. It’s not just the big card or the day-old roses. It’s her life: She envisions tete-a-tetes at the La Foret, but always ends up with a two-fer at The Olive Garden.

Another ride through the Tunnel of Love has turned into a four-car pile-up, and it’s all because of Valentine’s Day.

I understand all of this because 1) I’ve lived it, and 2) nobody’s more romantic than me. I’ve been known to dress up my cats as dinner dates and greet them at the door in a flimsy negligée. I’ve seen Sabrina 17 times. Red things are my life — lipstick, sloe gin fizzes, Radio Flyers, maraschino cherries. I love all gifts of the d’amour variety, even if they’re tawdry trinkets, and I especially love gifts that I haven’t had to send to myself. But I refuse to walk into the Valentine’s Day leg hold trap, that holiday disaster waiting to happen. This year, this Valentine’s Day, I’m going to be chillingly realistic about fact vs. fiction. I’m going to remember that men are not from around here, and where they’re from there aren’t any good stores. In fact, the whole month of February I plan to carry the following list in my purse (the one with the gold macaroni).

Clip it, girls, and keep it dear; it may see you through another Valentine’s Day Massacre.

On Valentine’s Day, women dream of champagne and Cary Grant. Men are glad they made the liquor store.

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

What we want                                                                          What we get

Champagne                                                                            A Schaefer

Breakfast in bed                                                                    Breakfast at Eat 'n Park

“My Funny Valentine”                                                            “Highway to Hell”

A love poem                                                                          A “Love is...” clipping

A tux                                                                                     Sweats

A limo to the Met                                                                  A cab home from Deja Vu

Chet Baker on a jukebox                                                       A Michael Bolton dedication on DVE

Hand-rolled Swiss chocolates                                                 Zagnuts

Slow groovin’ to Marvin & Otis                                              Humping to Beavis & Butthead

A red cocktail dress                                                              A tee-shirt from Hooters

A one-night stand                                                                Crabs

Diamond bracelet from Harry Winston’s                                Heart-shaped keyring from Sheets

Chanel No. 5                                                                       Jean Naté Splash

A love letter                                                                      Classified in the Post-Gazette

Strolling violinists                                                               Mimes

Hey, that little man kicked a touchdown

The story of a football neophyte.

Story by Drew Cucuzza; Photos by Kathleen Cei.

This Sunday men around the country will be pounding each other on the back and shouting at large screen TVs. They’ll drink beer, order apps and savior the glory that is the six foot sub. I’d bet cash that a few lucky shirts will be worn. What will I be doing while America’s men are waiting to see the new Bud Light commercial? More than likely cleaning out the litter box while listening to Roxy Music, or checking out Eames clocks on eBay. Let’s just say I won’t have much to talk about at the water cooler Monday morning. And I’m sure to hear some crack about “What kind of guy are you?”

I have a rule about drinking. I will only drink what Robert Mitchum would drink. That means beer, Scotch, wine, maybe a screw driver or an old fashioned. No “slippery nipple” or “sex on the beach." The only time I’ll ever drink any shot other than Jack Daniels or whiskey is when a woman suggests something else. Yeah, a nice rack can make me pretend to enjoy Southern Comfort or something that looks like a Frappucino. I never let women pay and when I buy a round of drinks, if a guy orders something stupid , I tell him I’ll buy him the single malt Scotch of his choice, but there’s no way I’m ordering something called “Red Death” for a man. But I’ll get a woman a “White Zin” all night and never let her reach for her purse.*

I also drive a 1966 Chevy Bel Air with a 327 that I’ve been known to describe as being “Cherry." I love Clint Eastwood movies and can tell you the tagline of all five “Dirty Harry” films. A friend of mine once cleaned my bathroom at 2 a.m. because she was so horrified by it: “Anyone who thinks you’re gay would see this and know you’re not."

I’ve taken extraordinary measures to get a second look at an especially spectacular butt.

But I couldn’t care less about football or any other sport. My dad is from Sicily and would rather talk about Fellini and De Sica or Louis Armstrong than Astroturf. I doubt he even knows what an expansion team is. And I think I set a record for consecutive number of times being last picked for teams in gym class.

I've always dreaded this time of year, although at least it’s better than the World Series, which lasts at least four nights instead of the Super Bowl’s far more merciful one.

I’ll be in the elevator at work, minding my own business, when some guy will get on and ask what I thought of last night’s touchdown (or interception, or pass, or whatever). What am I supposed to say? That I not only didn’t watch the game, and don’t know who was playing, but at the same time the game was on, I was watching “Mildred Pierce”? And then decided to look up Ruth Welcome’s “Zither Magic” on the internet?

John Waters once said that he wanted to hop into a cab and ask the driver what he thought of the new Fassbinder film. I sometimes think I should respond to these guys with something like this:

“What’s your take on the new Ramones box set? Do you think that by trying to give space to their later, post Dee Dee, post Sire Records stuff it ends up giving short shrift to their earlier CBGBs years, which, after all are punk’s ground zero? I mean come on; the Pistols and the Clash wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the brudderz from Queens, let alone stuff like Green Day, Rancid and all that Emo crap. And really, isn’t the whole Emo thing just a wimpy version of what the Huskers did better over 20 years ago? But the box really did get it right with those EC inspired covers, don’t you think? The outside cover reminds me of some Al Feldstein’s work before his editorial duties cut into his time too much. And the cover of the booklet is a perfect Jack Davis cop, even if the inside artwork varies a bit too much between underground commix, Archie stuff and the non-Marvel/DC stuff from the ‘80s for my tastes. You know, it’s funny how much in common the independents of music and comics from that era have in common, like the whole “Love and Rockets” connection or the ironic use of cartoon iconography…”

Now you know how I feel when sports fans talk about a “scrimmage," whatever the hell that is.

Nevertheless I’ll be watching and rooting for the Steelers this Sunday. Pittsburgh is a great town and they’re a great team--far better and nobler than the Seahawks. Plus I like their logo more.

*The author wishes to point out that he does not think that all women drink sweet drinks with popsicle colors, merely that he has far more tolerance for a woman drinking such concoctions. Indeed one of the few people who can drink him under the table is a woman. Who orders Guinness.

Photos: Natual progression: The author learns that a Towel is not just a towel.

Arsonist Burns Wrong Structure

According to the Post-Gazette, an arsonist set fire to a playground in Lincoln Place on Monday. The playground equipment, purchased in 1998 for $134,000, was very expensive and not condemned. Of all the structures that need to be burned in the city, this lavish set of playthings was not one of them.

by Mark Weimer

Pittsburgh’s efforts to develop dilapidated could be aided by more strategic fires which target unstable buildings instead of overpriced playthings. Nevertheless, the amateur arsonist’s actions were most likely not intended to be as destructive as building removal, but rather a simple Halloween prank. Needless to say, his or her services would be politically appreciated in several areas on the North Side, give recent developments concerning eminent domain.

The assistant director of the city’s Department of Public Works noted that clearly an agent was used to set fire to the structure, as a match simply was not capable of the feat. Although not explicitly noted, it is believed that combustion was involved in addition to fuel and a match or lighter.

No comments were made concerning why playground equipment is as expensive as a house though lacking electricity, usually plumbing, phones, and other expensive services. The Department of Public Works expects the playground to be fully functional in the spring, when buses will not run and parking garages will be closed.