Wouldn’t it be something if I published these little babies at an appointed time every Wednesday instead of leaving you guessing as to when exactly it will hit your inbox? I’ll be honest; there’s about as much chance of that happening as there is Instagram showing you your friends’ pictures.
Don’t hold your breath and instead just scroll through 40 ads for shoes you deeply want while growing to hate the algorithm for learning your fashion style so well. Yes, I love cork wedge heels, you intuitive ass. Now show me my friend’s chunky baby holding a tiny chalkboard that says “4 months!” Let’s chat.
1. First things first
Life is weird in that nothing happens for a long time and then something happens and another something comes right on its heels and before you know it, you have six somethings chasing you all at once where previously there was nothing within five miles of you. That’s kind of how it’s feeling in my life right now.
The latest is that the Post-Gazette, for the second week in a row, reprinted one of my essays that originally appeared here. The one about the pandemic forcing me to accept my disability. You can read the P-G’s slightly edited version here (they had to take my bitches and suck its out but they left in my damns and badasses).
Two front-page essays two weeks in a row in the Sunday opinion section is unusual and what does it mean? That remains to be seen. But for now, my words are out there for the larger city population (minus the suck its OMG BAND NAME—The Suck Its), but you OG readers will always be my favorite because you have to read my unedited stream of consciousness manic musings.
Damn, Manic Musings is also a great band name. Too bad I can’t sing. I’d for sure front a band that changed its name every week based on my writings. I’ve already lost complete control of this edition. Let’s move on to the non-personal stuff.
2. Second things second
I’ve mentioned this before and this tweet from my virtual space-pal who lives and works in Japan reminded me that it’s a thing in other cities:
I want these in Pittsburgh so badly. Imagine themed manhole covers. Like Steelers ones near HEINZ Field (suck it, Acplisure) or a Roberto one near where Forbes Field used to be. Perhaps an art contest for the ones in the Cultural District. Ketchup ones near the Heinz History Center. So many possibilities that could include a self-guided walking tour. It’s a great idea and it should happen so whoever has the power to make it happen, do it.
Also, all the ones in the South Side should say, “THE STREET IS NOT YOUR URINAL, YOU UNCOUTH JAG.”
3. …falling down, falling down, Pittsburgh stuff is falling dow—
Another local structure that was not supposed to fall down go boom has indeed fallen down and gone ba-boom. This time a residential parking structure in Penn Hills.
Cool cool cool coolcoolcoolcool. Not at all scary. Pittsburgh is having a normal one. This is fine.
Como said the parking lot collapsed into a storage area that once served as the parking lot’s lower level. The parking lot split its entire length, dropping the concrete 15 to 20 feet. The lot is about 50 yards long and 25 yards wide.
Imagine returning to your parked car to find it 20 feet below where you left it, resting inside a concrete taco shell like cursed meat. And thoughts and prayers to the woman who was parking her car when the structure collapsed beneath her.
When it started falling, I’d have been like, “I know I’m not great at back-in parking but I thought I was better than THI— oh shit.”
Anyway, everything is falling apart. It’s fine.
4. Move the pickles, please
I waited a week or two before discussing this for two reasons: (1) the further we are from the event, the less likely it is I’ll anger a bunch of pickle-worshiping Burghers. And (2) I forgot.
We need to talk about Picklesburgh and we need to talk about getting it off the bridge for next year. I attended Picklesburgh its inaugural year, and even then it was shoulder-to-shoulder up-close-and-personal chaos with thousands of dill-breathed Burghers, as is what one should expect to happen when you put an event on a bridge. There are only two entrances and those entrances also serve as egresses and if you do the math, if math existed but you already know my stance on that (it doesn’t), what you get is:
[2(entrance) + 2(egress) + 10,000 humans + 50 vendors] x 1 scorching sun = big fat bottleneck(2) + hell on Earth to the power of a billion
Double check my math though; maybe I forgot to carry the one* or something.
So that math was confirmed this year, the second time I’ve attended, despite the fact that the event expanded its footprint a bit. The bridge was still the main photo op. The bridge was still where most vendors were. The bridge was still shoulder-to-shoulder hell on Saturday and Sunday (less so on Friday when I went). Admission onto the bridge was occasionally shut down due to capacity, but from reports, that didn’t stop people from just walking around the signs and cops and heading onto the bridge anyway. Not only that, but once on the bridge, event-goers couldn’t even move, instead blocked into place by sheer humanity for chunks of time.
The final image in this tweet by the famed Dave DiCello gives you a perfect sense of what the crowds are like on the bridge:
Now, first, as the Fern Hollow bridge would tell you if it wasn’t dead, things are falling down in Pittsburgh and I don’t know the math for how much sustained weight that kind of crowd puts on the bridge compared to regular traffic, but it makes me nervous. “This pickle beer is pretty delicio— hey, am I super drunk or are we falling?” Yes, you are; welcome to the concrete taco. Second, being six inches from twenty random breathing holes for extended periods of time seems like a great way to spread COVID, but what do I know? I’m no doctor; I’m just a mathematician.
Third, the event has become too popular for the space; nay, it was always too popular for the space (see this image from three years ago). It’s time to completely rethink the location so that more Pittsburghers can enjoy the event because when it’s hell on a bridge like that? No one really gets to enjoy it save for the few blissfully drunk yinzers wearing I AM HERE TO EAT ALL OF THE PICKLES shirts and yes, that shirt exists and I kinda love it and want to add “*not a euphemism” in tiny letters at the bottom.
Keep the giant Heinz pickle balloon on the bridge, I guess. Shut the bridge down to vehicular traffic, sure, so people can walk up there and take a picture with the pickle. Maybe have some fun chalk art up there too. Make it the place where the visuals are, but the food, drink, fun and merchandise booths need to be moved, perhaps to where the Arts Festival booths were this year. They need to be moved to places with multiple ways in and out and where people have the space to actually wait in lines.
I’ve done the math; we are getting super close to something bad happening because the logistics weren’t better managed, and then we’ll REALLY be in a pickle. Ba-dum-tiss!
*Kids, you call this “regrouping” now, which is stupid and I encourage you to stop it.
5. The bestworst medical advice EVER
Finally, as I’ve been promising you for several weeks, a fun look into medical history via a regular column that used to run in the Pittsburgh Gazette-Times back in the early 1900s, written by a doctor who worked for Johns Hopkins at the time, Dr. Leonard Keene Hirshberg. Letters were mailed to the Gazette-Times from 1914-1920 and forwarded onto Dr. Hirshberg, therefore most of the letters to the doctor came from Pittsburghers.
Let’s take a look. First, the good doctor informs us on February 2, 1915 that the cure for gray hair has been found! Specifically:
Now, my first thought was, “Well, that seems poisonous.” But, my friends, it actually has some science behind it. So that’s +1 for Dr. H.
In 1914, a “hysterical” reader writes:
So let me get this straight. If I have what sounds like anxiety, I should eat whipped cream, ham, sweets, and candy. In fact, I should eat TWICE AS MUCH while at the same time sleeping twice as much? That sounds like a recipe for obesity and heart disease and happiness and who am I to argue with a doctor. Where’s the Twizzlers? -1, Dr. H.
Presented without comment:
-15.
Did … did he just invent sit-ups? +15
Radium for a birthmark (which was a thing). -11 billion
And finally, Dr. H advised that patients should “move their bowels” regularly to help with a variety of ailments including: to gain weight, to lose weight, constipation (which, hi!, how do you spontaneously move your bowels when you are constipated? “Doctor, I can’t poop! What should I do?!” “You should poop!”), mouth ulcers, excessive kidney fluid, back pain (“keep the bowels open twice a day”), bad breath, “a peculiar feeling in the back of my head” can be cured by force-pooping twice a day (or giving yourself an aneurysm), eye floaters, depression, nervousness, hysteria, obesity, hot flashes, throat tickle and on and on and on. Basically, if you’re dying, try pooping. It might cure you. “Dear! You are clearly having a stroke. Let’s get to the hospital.” “Hang on. Let me poop and see if that fixes it.”
I’m so glad I live in the hell times of 2022. Anyway, final score for Dr. H? Negative 11 billion.
6. This little piggy went rumspringa
There’s a 120-pound pig on the loose in Mt. Pleasant:
The family loaded Willie into a trailer, but, as they drove to the veterinarian, a tire blew out and the trailer overturned into a field. Willie escaped, and no one has been able to catch him for two weeks.
Willie seems highly motivated to live his best free Kodiak the Sea Eagle life. Wonder why.
Willie’s wild adventure began when the pig was on his way to be neutered.
Ah. If you think that tire just coincidentally blew out as the pig was on his way to be neutered, you have obviously never watched a prison break movie in your life. This was planned. He probably had help. He’s never coming back. He’s going out there and he’s making all the pig babies while he can.
Free Willie, indeed. Ba-dum-tiss, again!
7. That’s all!
Have a great week. Keep an eye out for Willie (that’s not a euphemism). And I didn’t say anything political in this post so the complaint line is closed this week. I’m sure it will be back open next week when Dr. New Jersey says something stupid to which John Fetterman will respond with a tweet saying simply, “Get reckt.”
Positively presidential.