And we’re back.
We’re back into a routine. We’re back to not eating cookies for two meals a day as has been our norm for three weeks (just me?). We’re back in a COVID wave so high it’s feeling very The Day After Tomorrow around here.
In other words …
Schools are going virtual due to lack of staff, events are being canceled, bus routes are being cut because the drivers are sick, Children’s Hospital had to open a second COVID unit and on and on it goes. At this point, it might be easier for the Allegheny County Health Department to just tell us who DOESN’T have COVID. “Good afternoon. For today’s report, we’ve identified a dude named Kevin out in Beechview who is not currently infected with COVID. We’re also investigating reports of a family of three in Shadyside who are also not currently infected. We’ll update on that as soon as we reverse contact-trace them. If we missed you in this report and you are also NOT currently infected with COVID, please contact your doctor immediately.”
This damned pandemic can die already. Let’s get to it.
1. Speaking of the end of days
It only took a bit more than 11 hours into the new year for 2022 to make a memorable entrance by showing off and shooting a thousand-pound meteor through the atmosphere over Pittsburgh at a gentle cruising speed of 45,000 MILES PER HOUR and exploding it in such epic fashion that houses all over the region felt the boom. 45,000 miles per hour. Yinz, that is about 12.5 miles PER SECOND. That’s like going from the Point to the airport in ONE SINGLE SECOND. Put that in your brain and let it marinate.
People were looking out their house windows to see if an alien war had broken out or if a rescue helicopter accidentally dropped a terrified elephant onto their roof. Hungover bros fell out of bed smacking at their phones to snooze whatever the hell alarm they accidentally set. Parents all over the tri-state area stomped over to the stairs to the bedrooms and yelled up, “KNOCK IT OFF UP THERE!”
On top of that, 30 tons of TNT is the energy equivalent of 3 Chernobyl blasts or 3 Mother Of All Bombs (MOABs) being dropped.
So here’s the thing we don’t know: is a meteor 11 hours into the new year a good omen or a bad omen? Is a half-ton ball of fragmented rocky asteroid debris screaming at 45,000 miles per hour through our sky before exploding so powerfully that people on the ground began waiting to see if they were being left behind in the rapture a Hella Cool or a Real Real Bad? On a scale of finding a four-leaf clover to a raven dropping a black cat on your head, where does this, as an omen, land? I tell you one thing — if it hadn’t been cloudy and I looked out my window not 12 hours into the new year to see a meteor tearing through the sky, blazing a trail of fire 100 times brighter than a full moon, I’d have been in a folding chair on my front lawn with a bottle of tequila and a bag of cookies prepared to watch the end of the world like it was the final episode of Cobra Kai.
2. Speaking of blasts [from the past]
Ed Gainey was inaugurated in a mostly virtual ceremony (thanks, Omicron) on Monday and on hand to witness Pittsburgh’s first Black mayor take the oath of office? These guys:
Let me tell you my thought process as I looked at this picture for the first time. “There’s Santa slash Pedutes. Cool. Wow, Murphy. Haven’t seen him in a while. Mayor Gainey looking happy! And there’s Luk-- [blink] Lu--? L-- …
He hasn’t been on my radar in so long that it was truly a Jurassic Park-worthy jumpscare for me to see his face. I was just waiting for him to unfold his neck frill and screech-spit venom at me through my computer screen. I think I might have PTSD. Here are a few more shots in case just one doesn’t fill your Lukey cup (which I assume is a knockoff SOLO full of room-temperature Jagermeister and Red Bull):
This goes without saying, but I’m showing my future grandchildren the third pic and telling them this was One Direction.
Also, Venom Screech-Spit is my new metalcore band name.
3. The elephant in the room (was not dropped by a rescue helicopter)
Let’s do a Choose Your Own Adventure because things are about to get real in here.
If you are a Ben Roethlisberger admirer/worshipper skip to #4.
If you are not or are open to opinions that differ from yours, continue reading.
If you’ve read me for a number of years, you know my issues with the man — the same issues some of you have. I continue to have a very real problem with the fact that he was credibly accused of rape multiple times and I’ll never not be bothered by the fact that any other man who had done the same would not be lauded as a hero. But Ben throws a football for Pittsburgh, so that history has been largely erased and he is adored and worshipped despite one accuser entering a mental health institution and the other dropping the charges out of fear of public backlash.
“Ben was immature at times,” said Brian Griese during the broadcast. “He made mistakes. And this fan base loves him and will always support him.”
Being credibly accused of rape twice and paying off the first accuser and getting suspended for the second accusation is not immaturity and that it has been referred to as such on a national broadcast in 2022 makes me feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Immaturity is public urination or public intoxication or using your boomstick to drunkenly fighting a Sheetz paper towel dispenser. What immaturity is NOT is beating your child’s mother or driving impaired or being credibly accused of rape … twice. That’s entitlement and unrestrained jackassery.
Okay, I get it. He was never charged. The rich football star was never criminally convicted and therefore clearly never did what he was twice accused of doing. I think we’ve all become keenly aware in the last five years or so just how unfair our justice system is and what happens to women who accuse famous men of sexual assault. I don’t honestly know what I’m saying here. I guess I’m saying Ben created this mark on his legacy via his own behavior and by putting himself in those situations. He just lucked out and never had to face consequences other than a suspension and loss of a few sponsorships. He’s a family man now. He’s grown. Changed. That’s the story the fans have latched on to. That’s the justification for feeling just fine for adoring a man who you’d otherwise shun could he not scramble out of a sack threat or send up a nice fade. That’s a fact and I know it makes you mad at me for saying so while we’re in this current state of worship, but I cannot in good conscience write an adoring 500-word post about Ben Roethlisberger on the occasion of his last home game because I know for a fact I’d never do it were he not able to throw a damn football.
I will never forget him feeding the baby and changing his diaper with the same care and precision that he delivered passes to Antonio Brown.
Holy shit. What a sentence. Imagine a sports reporter writing this about a woman. “I will never forget her feeding the baby and changing his diaper...” Never. Not once in a thousand million years. Ron wants us to believe that this extremely normal activity is so far outside the expectations of regular fatherhood that it’s evidence of a changed man. Gross.
Now you want to email me and say, “How long does he have to pay? When is he forgiven?” Well, if your daughter is one day sexually assaulted by a famous person, let me know how many years it would take before you felt just fine about him being beloved again. We all have different numbers; mine just isn’t up yet. Yours may be and it’s fine if you want to support him. As for me, I’m ready for the next era and I’m ready for a quarterback who doesn’t make me feel uneasy for rooting for him. Interpret this image however makes you happy and let’s put this one behind us:
3. You’re still here?!
If you’ve gotten past the Ben post without emailing me, unfollowing me on all my socials, unsubscribing or Googling my address to come throw trash or random toilets on my lawn, let’s continue!
It looks like the Esplanade is really happening, including the riverside Ferris Wheel!
The lagoon idea seems to have been nixed after less-than-positive early reaction from locals. I’m extremely glad there are plans for an aquarium, but even moreso, I’m thrilled that Pittsburgher George Ferris will finally have his invention featured in his hometown — the very city in which he invented the Ferris Wheel. When this Esplanade idea was first floated a few years back, there were plans for a Pittsburgh Firsts museum to go along with the Ferris Wheel, and to Millcraft, I just want to say … DO IT AND HIRE. MY. BUTT.
The entrance to the Ferris Wheel should be through a full-size replica of one of George’s original cars from the 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition. Those puppies each held 40 people.
While riders are awaiting their turn, screens inside the replica car should detail the history of George and his wheel. George was a soft-spoken man who died destitute at Mercy Hospital of typhoid fever at the young age of 37. Cities around the world feature Ferris Wheels on their rivers and it’s time Pittsburgh does the same in honor of the Burgher who invented them nearly 130 years ago.
If you’d like to learn more about George, I cannot strongly enough recommend you read Devil in the White City (which will soon be a movie).
4. Whoa, baby! No, seriously. WHOA.
With the assistance of her mother, a North Hills woman gave birth to her third child in her driveway next to the family car when her baby insisted on proving the OB/GYN wrong by demanding egress just hours after the doc said the baby wasn’t ready to be born.
Baby, 1
Doctor,
But that’s not why I’m pointing out this story, because it’s not actually that incredibly rare an occurrence. (If you’re wondering how this can possibly happen, let me tell you — second and third and fourth or whatever babies? They just kinda sometimes shoot out without so much as a “‘sup, mama?” My first baby was like birthing a sideways Tonka Truck and my second was like Wheeeee! Water slide!)
I’m pointing out this story because of what they named the baby:
Once the baby got to the hospital, it was time to give their healthy son a name. The couple said it was only by chance that they choose (sic) the name Axel for their third son, who was born outside the family car.
Axel!
It’s absolutely perfect for a kid born on the ground next to a car. Also, it really means “My father is peace,” which, LOL. More like, “My father is hyperventilating and shouting into his phone that his wife is delivering a baby in the GD mothereffing driveway.”
5. Let’s end this one here. Kevin in Beechview, stay safe and watch out for Omicron. Everyone else, feel better soon! Email me praise, worship, and tips. Anger at my Ben Roethlisberger post can be directed to this number:
Choose option 4 for “I’d like to speak to the manager of the internet.”