I don’t. I feel. I just. I--.
I don’t generally like to make fun of strokes because I was highly susceptible to them for several years, but at the same time … I think I smell toast?
Now, before you go rushing for the unsubscribe button, trust me to handle this in a way that is reasonable.
WHAT THE ACTUAL F--
Kidding! Okay, here is my calmer, less “our pets’ heads are falling off!” response:
If we are to believe the lore—the “the standard is the standard” lore, the “Steelers Way” lore, the “we are better than you even when we aren’t better at football than you” lore—then we must see that Aaron Rodgers, ironically, does not belong in Mister Rogers’ actual neighborhood. We have not historically just been a football town; we have been a football town that 100 percent hook-line-sinker bought into and believed the lore and did our best to ignore the dings to its protective armor over the years. Eventually, the armor becomes so damaged you have to accept it as a loss and toss it aside.
Let’s put aside the fact that Aaron Rodgers is old and so far past his prime that his prime can only be seen by firing up the James Webb Space Telescope and then squinting real hard. What is left is not that he isn’t “Steelers material,” but that he is not “Pittsburgh material,” because he has proudly and openly established himself as anti-science and pro-conspiracy. He is, from first-person reports, an Alex Jones-type “did my own research” Sandy Hook “truther,” which is completely unforgivable.
Beyond that, he’s weird; he’s a jerk; he’s a liar, and he doesn’t care about others’ health (he spoke to reporters unmasked at that event which he attended under the cover of his own lie that he had been “immunized”). Mister Rogers would never. He’d say, “Be kind. Care about others. Tell the truth. Don’t be such a weird cringey jagoff. Feed your fish.”
But this is where we are, if we choose to take our blinders off and stare into the light of the truth: “The Standard” and “The Steelers Way” are not armored shields protecting us from being like those teams and fanbases we see as beneath us; rather, they are merely cheap disposable hooks on which we hung our collective, heavy black and gold pride. Once they fall, there is only sport and there is only money, and that’s all there ever really was and will be.
Here we go?
2. In which I commence with the blowing of your whole mind
Reader, if I told you to take a blind stab at how many illegally dumped tires Allegheny Cleanways has recovered from our land and waters, what would you guess?
In my head, I look at a car tire or a truck tire and I try to envision, say, 100 of them. Got it. Then 1,000 of them. Sure. Then 5,000 of them. That’s a lot of tires. My brain kind of breaks down after 10,000, maybe on account of the toast I’m currently smelling.
The answer to how many littered and dumped tires Allegheny Cleanways has recovered from our natural surroundings is …
53,000! Are you smelling toast too?
I struggle to picture 10,000 tires without my brain lighting small toasty fires and the number is more than five times that!
As you know, I serve on their board’s development committee as an independent member, and we recently began working with Pittsburgh’s own and awesome Commonwealth Press, specifically their owner Dan Rugh, to design some shirts and other items that benefit the work of the organization. Well, Dan, upon learning that ACW has removed 53,000 (!) tires, went and calculated that the below is an accurate visual representation. I must again ask you to hold on to your butt as you scroll down to the bottom on this:
I bet you didn’t hold your butt hard enough. Look at teeny tiny little Pittsburgh. Look at big giant Everest. LOOK AT THE TIRES THAT WERE ONCE IN OUR WATERS AND LAND.
I don’t even know what to say. What’s wrong with us? Why are we like this? If you’re one of those doing the dumping, why are you like this? If you’re on City or County Council, why aren’t you addressing this with more than lip service paid just long enough to get elected and then to sound smart and important and well-intentioned once you’re sworn in? If you’re Corey O’Connor, what are you going to do about this? If you’re Sara Innamorato, what are you currently doing about this? Put down the giant ceremonial scissors and do something real!
Our streets, sidewalks, highways, green spaces, forests and rivers are currently drowning in litter to the point it has become embarrassing so I’ll continue to shout and make myself a nuisance until someone in power does something big. In the meantime, we must place our support behind Allegheny Cleanways by volunteering our time and our donations. They’re the ones actually making a difference on the ground and in our waters.
I’ll share the new shirt designs at the Commonwealth Press store as soon as they’re ready. They’re so awesome! None of this is an ad.
3. You can lead a yinzer to a wormhole
My friend Jonathan sent me to this repository of historical Hearst newsreels that used to play before movies in America’s theaters between the 1920s and 1960s, but rudely neglected to do so with a proper warning that it was actually a wormhole of epic suction. I searched for “Pittsburgh” and found some gems lost two days of my life.
There’s Roberto Clemente joyfully rounding third with Phoebe Buffay’s flailing gait where he seemingly isn’t sure what to do with his arms (I can relate). Start at 1:10 for that goodness.
Here’s the Pitt football team getting smacked around by Illinois in Pittsburgh in 1946. Please go to :38 and watch the play and tell me what the heck this ref is signaling because as far as I can tell, it’s, “Get jiggy with it!”
Watch the Pirates performing Spring Training drills in Hollywood along with Honus Wagner and Bing Crosby in 1948.
Bing shows up at Spring Training again in 1952 here. If you go to :30, you too can witness a sure concussion at second base. Or check out the newsreel of Jonas Salk’s successful polio vaccine in 1955 that also features video of the women working in his lab:
As a bonus, there’s this from the 1957 University of Pittsburgh polio mass inoculation effort at the Cathedral of Learning.
It goes on and on. There’s the 1945 Ice-Capades show at the Civic Arena to benefit wounded war vets. Go to :27 for a bonkers stunt that made me hold my breath because one wrong move and that guy is saying hello to the business end of an ice skate. The Steelers getting demolished by the Eagles in 1947, U.S. Steel pouring their 1 billionth ton of steel in 1952, the aftermath of the Western Penitentiary prison riots in 1953, a Pittsburgh Zoo gorilla, Jambo, being treated for a tummy ache in 1956. The way Jambo opens his mouth so wide for the care team to look inside nearly ended me.
Have fun in the wormhole! Search by anything. By a city, a sport, an event. Just make sure your pets have water before you dive in; there’s no telling when you’ll come up for air.
4. Write her name on your yinzer heart
Did you know that when Rachel Carson was making a name for herself in the environmental game, some men branded her writings as nothing more than emotional outbursts from a “hysterical,” “cat-loving spinster”? As I say in my latest column for Pittsburgh Magazine, “It’s when they bring up your cats that you know you’ve struck a nerve.”
My latest starts evocatively with “Sex sells” and then asks, “Where are the women?” when it comes to Pittsburgh history. I’m sharing the story of the first woman to direct a female film, Pittsburgh’s own Lois Weber, who didn’t shy away from controversial topics in the more then 100 films she wrote and/or directed in the silent film era. She platformed women via her films to such an extent that flustered men began wondering, Where are the men?! She died mostly forgotten, in part due to her refusal to stop telling women’s stories, but I hope Pittsburgh will never let her legacy be erased.
A snippet:
Lois Weber did not return to the shallows of “sex sells” because she never went there in the first place. Her choices, even those involving nudity, were always made with her heart holding fast to who she was and what she believed. She believed in women.
Hollywood erased Lois Weber despite initially warning us that hers was not a name to be forgotten. We, too, have forgotten her. We’ve forgotten a Pittsburgh woman who never wavered from her individuality or her earnest desire to reveal to women the seemingly absent agency available in their lives.
Give it a read and let me know what you think!
5. Random n’at
Some little treats for you!
Kraft and Uber have teamed up to “verify” establishments that use Heinz ketchup over inferior tomato-flavored watery goop.
I promise my next edition of this newsletter is going to give you all the details on what has become of my Pittsburgh Remains to be Seen project (hint, clicking on that link gives you the full sneak peek). I’m so excited with what our team has created for you! In the meantime, I’m searching for someone who knows anyone at Allegheny Cemetery. My email to them has gone ignored and I’m about to go all Miss Piggy “Moi?!” about it. Email me at ginnymontanez@gmail.com. And media peeps that would like to cover the project, you can email me too!
Starting September 1 and continuing for the foreseeable future, children under 18 and school groups can visit the Senator John Heinz History Center for free thanks to a donation by the Kamins. Take your kids. It’s an awesome way to connect them to the Pittsburgh story. Not an ad!
Pittsburgh-based Dicks is buying Foot Locker and will not be renaming it to Dick Locker. Whew. Bullet dodged.
Light of Life Rescue Mission has opened a free hair salon for their clients. Love that!
Pittsburgh finally saw not only an increase in population, but the largest such increase among the state’s municipalities between 2020 and 2024. It’s a start!
My Pittsburgh History to WWII course for Pitt’s Osher School now has 58 students enrolled. It starts in person on July 1 and is once a week for five weeks. There’s still time to sign up if you’re age 50 and over! See page 24 here.
6. That’s all!
I’m super out of space and time. Have a wonderful weekend! Be kind! Don’t illegally dump tires! Don’t email me your opinions about Aaron Rodgers; just start your own Substack! Do email me if you know someone at Allegheny Cemetery!
And be sure to come out this week and see my new band Wormhole of Epic Suck. Our opening act is Phoebe Buffay’s Flailing Gait.
We rock so hard, you’ll smell toast.