Hello, Pittsburgh! It is I, your magically disappearing and magically delicious writer, editor, publisher, and ignore-er of this here newsletter. Why do I forsake you thusly, you ask?
First, before we get to the life chaos, I hope you enjoyed the little Bob Ross palate cleanse. I know many of you (and me!) are reeling today. Searching for our new center in this seemingly upside-down world. This newsletter was always meant to be a space for you to exhale and decompress for a few minutes, so today seems like a good day to publish.
Chaos update! Because you care! I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t regularly getting myself into little baby projects that transform themselves into things much bigger than I expected. The little Lukey-bashing bloggy-blog turned into [gestures widely at everything everywhere], the little “let’s win this online contest to put a gaming room in Children’s Hospital” turned into a decade of bringing in-room gaming to Pittsburgh’s hospitalized kids with the Mario Lemieux Foundation (exciting news on this front soon!), my second undergrad degree turned into grad school, and now my Pittsburgh Remains to be Seen project is gearing up to become an app. App development is coming along beautifully thanks to my partners David Jardini and Harlan Shober. I’ll give you a specific update on this soon, but for now, email me if you’d like to be on the list to test the app in our beta stage (ginnymontanez at gmail).
Now, you and I have lots to discuss, so let’s forget about the chaos and let’s forget about the burn marks from our having been thusly smote, and take a few deep breaths.
Wow. Having Been Thusly Smote is possibly the best band name I have ever come up with. I might be a genius; I’m very probably going to win a Grammy. Let’s talk!
1. “Do you have a side-gig?” “Yes, chief of police.”
Remember our chief of police lol? You may have forgotten or never become fully aware of him seeing as he was hired a year ago and has now retired because he wanted to take a pay cut to work part-time as a traveling referee for NCAA games while still serving as chief. That is not a MadLib. I did not just pull some verbs and nouns out of my smote butt. This is 100 percent what happened, and by all appearances it looks like Mayor Gainey inexplicably made an agreement with Scirotto and then hid it from council. After pushback on his plans to return to refereeing, Scirotto chose to retire and was on the court just days later. Back here in Pittsburgh, city council was left trying to figure out what the hell happened.
Yet Jake Pawlak, director of the Office of Management and Budget, Chief Operating and Administrative Officer Lisa Frank and Public Safety Director Lee Schmidt acknowledged during a tense council meeting that they were aware of a deal the mayor cut with Scirotto to allow him to start refereeing again after a year.
Councilman Anthony Coghill, D-Beechview, showed a video clip from Scirotto’s interview with council last year before he was approved as chief.
“I know you have committed to not pursue that profession (refereeing) while you’re here as our Pittsburgh police chief, correct?” Coghill asked Scirotto.
Gainey and Scirotto agreed behind the scenes that the two of them could discuss Scirott’s return to officiating basketball games after a year, Pawlak said.
It gets worse! In an interview on KDKA radio, Scirotto called the agreement with Gainey a “man-to-man agreement” and therefore not one the public or city council needed to know about.
Let me repeat myself, but louder this time:
Why the hell would Mayor Gainey agree to that? Why wasn’t Scirotto immediately ruled out as a candidate for the job the moment he expressed the desire to return to reffing at some point? The incoming police chief had a lot of important target priorities—controlling weekend crime on the South Side, keeping downtown safe, keeping the force accountable especially as it relates to racial profiling and de-escalation procedures, running as tight of a fiscal ship as possible while maintaining order, responding to major incidents that often arise, being that person with whom the buck stops, etc.
In a small Hallmark town called Hollyberrytree where the police chief’s office is also a Christmas tree farm and the worst criminal is whoever stole the plastic sheep from the Silent Night Bed and Breakfast’s nativity, sure, let your chief of police drive Uber on the side. Whatever. But in a city the size of Pittsburgh? Maybe don’t plan to have a side-gig that has you regularly on the road following your heart’s true passion.
By the time the bottom of this is gotten to, I imagine both the administration and Scirotto are going to come out looking even worse than they already do. Let’s hope the mayor does a better job filling the position again, or in three months you are gonna jump into an Uber on Carson at 11 p.m. on a Saturday night to find the chief of police offering you a tin of loose Chicklets and asking for a five-star driver rating.
2. Here’s one vote that went everyone’s way
We did it!
Yes, this is old news by now, but you listen here: my smote ass is playing catch-up and I have to acknowledge that this one went the way we wanted. It’s a perfect name and the merch is already badass. Look at their first scarf!
Look at the city skyline on there! When I was in Ireland, I loved seeing the locals in Dublin walking to the hurling match (look it up) in their team scarves or sitting in the pubs wearing them. It was like, okay, the stereotype is REAL. Now we get to be cute and warm and cuddly here in Pittsburgh while supporting our new professional women’s soccer team.
Also, do you think visitors from Dublin ever come to Pittsburgh and go, “These people look like they fell into a vat of black and gold paint on their way to get their mullets trimmed before heading to church for either worship, dumplings or a plank of fried fish. The stereotype is REAL!” I hope so.
3. Excuse me. You’re the WHAT window?
My pal who I only see randomly on a downtown street once a quarter for a half-second hug, local architect Bruce Chan (he who hands out meatballs during the marathon forcing runners to test their mettle to see whether they keep it down or do a Michael Scott's Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run Race For the Cure sidewalk puke) is the king of Pittsburgh Halloween. Every year he comes up with the most hyper-local costume that no one outside of a 15xxx area code will understand.
One year he was the Rachel Ann Bovier billboard (all photos from his social media accounts either at Twitter or Instagram):
Another year he was the Heinz bottle being hauled away from the newly named Acrisure Stadium:
I still laugh at that one. And this year:
He has successfully gone SO hyper-local that I bet I have to explain this one to many of you. He is the butthole window from 4520 Penn Avenue near Children’s as seen here in 2023 (it has since been demolished):
He even made the tile border hahahaha. Absolutely brilliant. In keeping with this theme of hyper-local, I hope next year he goes as the Titty Sphinx.
4. It’s the most wonderful time of the yearrrrrr!
That’s right. It’s time once again for my world-famous annual Yinzer Holiday Gift Guide! It’s so popular, even Oprah is jealous. I believe this will be the 15th year I’ve put out this list, which just goes to show how old I am. As soon as I publish this, I’m going to go stand outside and shake my fist at the clouds and maybe mutter something about my lower back and the price of stamps.
This is where you come in. Email (ginnymontanez at gmail) me your suggestions for items for the list. Remember:
Items should be locally made or produced by/for local companies.
Pittsburgh-themed items made elsewhere are also accepted, though I usually keep these to a minimum. Maybe 1-3 on the list each year.
Makers/sellers should be able to fill several dozen orders at a minimum because, as I said, it’s a popular list and items do indeed sell out. Especially the jewelry items I feature.
My goal is to post the list on Black Friday so that you all can shop it for Small Business Saturday or Cyber Monday or Tequila Tuesday.
What? ¡Salud! to all who celebrate!
5. We’re gonna need a bigger label maker
Coinciding with this mother’s relocation to LA from Pittsburgh, Wiz Khalifa is selling his Pittsburgh mansion and it’s quite gorgeous, tons of huge picture windows and zero butthole windows. This in particular made me sit up straight and fall in love:
Why do I love this so much? It might be because I love labeling. I use my label maker all the time. I like to label tabs in my journals. I like to label my research binders. If my dogs would let me, I’d label their noses with “Boop it.” So now, Wiz has inspired me to start labeling all my doors with names and taglines. I can already picture it:
“TEENAGERS’ BATHROOM: Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here”
“BASEMENT: If you want the adrenaline rush of sitting on a toilet out in the open while centipedes watch you poop”
“MOM’S CLOSET: Hope you like TJ Maxx!”
“DECK: Domain of the Lanternfly”
“PANTRY: Ginny, do not stand in here and consume 700 calories of random snacks 24 minutes before you go to bed like some kind of meth-crazed raccoon”
Leave me alone. This is my post-election emotional support vat of cheese balls which pairs nicely with my pre-inauguration emotional support box of wine.
Have I said ¡Salud! yet? ¡Salud!
6. Random n’at
So much space stuff is happening lately in Pittsburgh! A lunar rover that will soon be on the moon is currently on display at the Moonshot Museum on the North Side! In what I am calling a shout-out to me, we are getting a Moon tree from seeds flown aboard the Artemis launch I witnessed in 2022! It will be planted near the Observatory! And students from CCAC had one of their experiments on space fungus blasted to space on a SpaceX rocket! Wow, I apologize for all the exclamation points, but at the same time, I do not apologize at all. !!!!!!!!!!!*
In a move sure to piss off a bunch of weirdos, downtown Pittsburgh is getting additional public restrooms! No longer will you have to desperately hunt for a restroom for you or your child. This is a very very good thing, but I look forward to your emails explaining to me why it is actually a bad thing to give human beings appropriate places to pee and poop. I will carefully file those emails away with the ones you sent about how banning plastic shopping bags in Pittsburgh made you boycott Giant Eagle.
Now, before you get upset, I assure you I labeled my shredder with a “T” for Trash. My filing system works.
The second of two sheep that ran away from a Plum farm was recently found standing at the gates of hell, or “the ramp to Route 28” as it is sometimes called. The best part, other than the sheep being reunited with his owner, was the way he was found—via a post on the “Don’t Wait on 28” Facebook group that said, “If anyone is missing a goat, it is chilling on the off-ramp of Route 28 at the Tarentum exit.” This is like that time that pig got out of his room and walked down the Parkway West. That is also not a MadLib. It really happened and it gave us one of the best headlines ever.
Eat your heart out, sinkhole bus.
*Somewhere, my mother just said, “Finally, she understands how to use punctuation properly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
7. That’s all!
That’s a wrap on this long overdue edition of Pittsburgh nonsense. Take care of yourself! Get out there and keep your mind focused on the real world and real, tangible experiences and moments and people and friends! Check in on all your people! Share a few vats of cheeseballs and boxes of wine! Use exclamation points without apology! Be kind! Volunteer! Read a good book! Read my book, you jags! Email me gift suggestions and let me know if you want to beta test the app! Have a great week on purpose and I’ll see you back here when I see you back here.
Also, I’m not sure yet, but the Meth-Crazed Raccoons might be opening for Having Been Thusly Smote this week. I’ll keep you posted. It just depends on if we all sober up from all the “emotional support” we’re ingesting.
¡Salud!