Happy Halloween!
Have you let your children know yet what the household candy tax will be this year? Mine is the same every year — 100 Grand bars. Don’t come home without at least two minis or one full-size. May the odds be ever in your favor lest the candy tax witch smite you with broccoli for dinner every night forever.
Let’s get to it, my pretties.
1.Provocative Parking Pumpkin Propulsions
Hoo - freaking - boy. You’ve seen this story, I know, but we need to talk about the Bloomfield residential parking dispute that resulted in the injurious hurling of gourds through a car window. I’m going to turn it over to WPXI briefly:
A man threw a pumpkin at a woman’s head after she parked in front of his family’s home Wednesday afternoon in Pittsburgh’s Bloomfield neighborhood, police said.
The initial news reports were that he threw two pumpkins and, readers, I had imagined he grabbed a few of those small pumpkins that people like to scatter around their landscaping and stoops, and threw them at her like baseballs, but I was wrong. Very very wrong.
This grown ass adult man heaved a fully grown ass fancy white pumpkin that looks like it’s one salagadoola mechicka boola bibbidi-bobbidi-boo away from becoming Cinderella’s midnight getaway carriage. And that’s not even the one he threw through her car window; it was reportedly even larger. As such, that’s basically assault with a deadly gourd and the assailant was charged. Back to you, WPXI, for more on that:
Gazis was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and propulsion of missiles.
What a way to say “throwing pumpkins,” and honestly much less embarrassing for Mr. Gazis. No one wants to be that guy who got arrested for heaving Cinderella pumpkins at a grandma’s head.
Now, this story is a microcosm of a much larger … cosm? Let’s go with that. And that cosm is this: Too many Pittsburghers think they own the street space in front of their house. Hence the parking chairs in the summer. Hence the very ballsy move of putting actual orange construction cones on street parking spaces as if you’ve suddenly been vested of power by the Pittsburgh Parking Authority (hello, South Side). You don’t own the spot. You don’t own the asphalt. You don’t own the air. You only own the Cinderella pumpkin sitting on your stoop and whether you use that gourd or a folding chair in an attempt to reserve something that doesn’t even belong to you, you’ll still never have rightful ownership of the space. The only exception to this rule is if you’ve dug that space out after a snow storm. Then it’s the Yinzer Thunderdome and you have the right to defend it with whatever missiles you can get your hands on.
Related: The Injurious Gourds is my new band name. We play street punk.
2.“Give me a PEE-EYE-TEE-TEE!”
Let’s talk about the history of Pitt, Carnegie Tech and Penn State cheer leaders — a vaunted title held only by the most respected MALE students. Back in the 1800s and early to mid-1900s, one male student was chosen as “cheer leader” whose job was to lead the student section, known as rooters, in as loud of organized cheers as they could. Cheer leaders were regularly featured in the local Pittsburgh newspapers — when they were chosen, injured, or even married. They were considered a member of the team, in some respects, so many team pictures from this time period include the school’s cheer leader. Here’s Duquesne University’s basketball team in 1918 with their cheer leader seated:
The Post-Gazette archives have references to cheer leaders in the 19th century, discussing how they wouldn’t be able to speak for days after games and often sprained their wrists from their wild gesticulating. Here’s Pitt’s cheer leader leading football fans during a November 25, 1909 championship loss against State College at Forbes Field via the Pittsburgh Daily Post:
Pitt’s cheer leader in 1910 was the extremely popular George M. Kirk. As you can read in the caption below, it was good ole’ George who wrote the “Hail to Pitt” lyrics.
He eventually left to fight in WWI in Italy before returning to Pittsburgh and becoming a pretty well known baritone soloist.
The Gazette Times published a cartoon of Andrew Carnegie as a Tech cheer leader in 1911:
A collegiate-type uniform starts showing up on these men in 1917. Here’s one of several pictures I found showing the arm stripes on Pitt cheer leaders’ sweaters:
Here’s Pitt grad and former cheer leader Jim Scott demonstrating the cheer techniques he will teach other men in his Pittsburgh cheer class in 1921 and I could not love Jim more.
Is he dancing? Zumba-ing? Is this what “fisticuffs” is? I love it all. Teach me your ways, Jim. In the 1920s, the lone cheer leader was replaced with of a team of cheer leaders. Here’s Penn State’s cheer leading team in 1928:
What specimens! So this goes on for decades and you’re wondering, when do the girls get a chance? Well, Carnegie Tech tried it in 1933 by adding three girls to their cheer leading team and they lasted three games before Tech admin cut them due to an “unfavorable reaction.” Makes you want to propel some pumpkins, doesn’t it? At Pitt, girls wouldn’t be permitted to try out to cheer until NINETEEN FREAKING FIFTY-FOUR.
And by 1959, things finally begin looking a bit more like what we know as modern cheerleading, via the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph:
Isn’t Pittsburgh history fun? Now, be sure to keep this post handy for the next time someone tries to tell you that today’s men aren’t living up to the alpha-male He-Man Rambo Jesse James Brawny Testosterony machismo of men of the past. All lies. The actual men of the past were cheer leaders and they were achingly perfect.
3.Drink milkshakes for sick kids!
You have only five more days to get to a Burgatory location to snag a ScareHouse Shake, the sales of which will benefit the Make Room for Kids program at Mario Lemieux Foundation. They’re available until October 31 for dine-in, take-out, or curbside delivery.
Please buy one or the candy tax witch will hex your treat bags with stale Tootsie Rolls and loose Circus Peanuts.
4.Death by gravity
The Dirty Dozen Bike Ride, Pittsburgh’s equivalent of the insane Gloucester cheese-rolling race, took place over the weekend. Instead of incredibly brave/stupid people trying to run down a grassy hill without being murdered by gravity, the Dirty Dozen Bike Ride features incredibly brave Burghers trying to ride their bikes up Pittsburgh’s twelve steepest streets without being murdered by gravity. Gravity is ALWAYS the head bitch in charge.
The centerpiece of this bike ride is the steepest street in the world, the cobble-stoned Canton Avenue. (Don’t argue with me, New Zealand. It’s not your dumb Baldwin Street with its puny 34.8% rising.) If you’ve never driven up Canton, don’t. Your car will hate you and possibly poop out a strut. Riding a bike up it? You’d have to be nuts.
Turns out, lots of Pittsburghers are nuts. Here’s a video from a bike-rider’s POV from this year’s race — dude has to get a 14-mph running start to get up it. Check out about 1:54 in this one from 2017 to see the man in lime green shoes demonstrate how hard it is to walk a bike DOWN Canton just to give you an idea of how hard it would be to get UP it. Then go to 2:36 and watch gravity say, “BOOM, ROASTED.”
Canton Avenue is pretty young. It opened in 1976, and early reviews were very much WHAT IN THE HELL IS THIS MONSTER RISING UP BEFORE US? I’m not making up any of these quotes about Canton from 1976 via The Pittsburgh Press:
“Whoever is responsible for that fiasco should be severely reprimanded.”
“It’s like trying to make a left hand turn into a wall.”
“I don’t think any sane person would try to go up it.”
“You can’t go up and can’t go down.”
“You gotta see it. You can’t believe it. It’s much steeper than a ski slope.”
Sounds like the perfect place to ride a bike, crazies.
5.Death by donut
If riding a bike with inch-thick tires up a dozen steep streets isn’t your cup of torture, perhaps you’d be interested in a sport that combines running and donuts? Welcome to CMU’s Donut Dash, which took place earlier this month and also benefited the Mario Lemieux Foundation! The mission, for those students who chose to accept it: run one mile, eat six donuts — not munchkins, mind you, but six entire full-size donuts. Then, having ingested a half-dozen donuts, immediately run another mile.
What this is NOT is a picture of a man enjoying a donut. What this IS is a picture of a man trying to talk a donut down. Did we learn NOTHING from Michael Scott’s fettuccini alfredo disaster at the Michael Scott's Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run Race For the Cure!? If I attempted this donut race, there would be a one hundred percent chance of the propulsion of missiles … from my mouth.
6. Yinz’s potato obsession
Steve Hofstetter is a well-known comedian who moved to Pittsburgh in order to buy and renovate a church into a place for comedians to live and hone their craft. He recently posted this hilarious answer he gave to an audience member asking him about the culture shift he experienced during his move from Cali to here, and it’s just perfect. A must-watch for yinzers everywhere who need a little laugh right now.
P.S. Yinz was a contraction of “you ones” which became youns which became yunz which finally became yinz.
7. Let’s end it here. Have a great week, Burghers. Buy a shake! Don’t defend a parking space with hurled princess gourds! Tax your children’s candy like the despot you are! And most importantly, never, EVER, race a bike up Canton Avenue or a wheel of cheese down Cooper’s Hill.