First, the update we’ve all been waiting for. Why couldn’t my robot-mother comb her hair without electricity after last week’s storm-induced power outage? Some of you guessed that she uses a Flowbee to do her hair every morning like
Which I would argue is 100 percent a thing a robot would do.
But the answer is this: she couldn’t get splashes of water to make her short hair lie flat because it needed to be washed, but if she washed her hair, she had no way to plug in her hair dryer and hair straightener and she tried a ballcap but decided she looked terrible in it and she is a fashion plate who never goes anywhere with her hair not looking perfect so she gave up and stayed home and all of that got distilled down to “I HAVE NO WAY TO COMB MY HAIR WITHOUT ELECTRICITY.”
Okay, robot. Whatever you say.
Let’s get to it!
1. Jeopardy! in jeopardy of being super wrong
We need to talk about this:
So the answer is obviously “What is Pittsburgh?” and we know this because we are Pittsburgh and we lived it and we LOLed at the absolute serendipity of Joe Biden having a scheduled infrastructure visit the very day a whole-ass bridge gave up on life and collapsed and we are clearly living in a simulation. But Jeopardy!’s usage of “the” instead of “a” is misleading or flat-out wrong because “the” implies the name of the bridge was “The Forbes Avenue Bridge,” and we all know—NOW—that the bridge was called The Fern Hollow Bridge. It is possible that Jeopardy! wanted to use “Forbes” to trigger a connection to Pittsburgh because it is a name historically associated with our city, but again, it’s a misleading answer. Luckily that contestant still went on to win the game, but had she not, I’d have raised a stink if I were her because the news of the collapse reached national outlets and was correctly referred to as the Fern Hollow Bridge over and over and that might have triggered the correct answer in a contestant not familiar with our city’s history.
But she won, so I guess we can let it slide. That said, this face is now my reaction to a whole bunch of ridiculous and questionable shit:
Also, Ridiculous and Questionable Shit is my new band name. We open for the Bastard Bearded Irishmen this week. We use so much profanity, you can’t even believe it.
2. Speaking of whole-ass bridges giving up on life
The NTSB released some updated information about the collapse of the Fern Hollow Bridge, JEOPARDY!, and there are some downright scary images taken from the bus that got sucked down into oblivion along with it. From the front camera showing the expansion joint pulling apart:
While at the same time? The bridge had already fallen from an abutment as shown in the rear camera:
Hoo boy. Gives me heart palpitations just looking at it. I can practically feel my stomach dropping out. When I used to feel Pittsburgh bridges shaking weirdly as I was stopped on them, I’d reassure my concerned children all, “That’s just the expansion joint doing its job,” but now I’d be like, “WE GOIN’ DOWN, MY BABIES!” Anyway, yeah, never crossing a bridge again. Wish me luck getting literally anywhere in Pittsburgh.
3. Badassery has landed
Your airport snaps with statues of iconic Burghers—or in the case of George Washington, future presidents who nearly died in an icy Pittsburgh river—are about to get a whole lot more badass.
Heck. ‘In. Yes.
Badass journalist Nellie Bly was born as Elizabeth “Pinky” Cochran (then she changed it to Cochrane) here and wrote for the Pittsburg Dispatch for a while before leaving to write in New York. Why she wrote under a penname, you ask? Because at the time, women couldn’t write under their real names without it being considered inappropriate. But living in a patriarchy is cool and good and fine and just dandy for women, right? Don’t get me started. If you’re a man about to email me about this, please take every seat within a six-mile radius of your adorable butt.
Nellie was first published anonymously at age 21 in 1885 in a letter to the Dispatch’s editor because she was angry at a column that claimed a woman’s place was in the home as a man’s “helpmate.”
She was hired at the Dispatch, recalling later, “I was glad I was going to be a newspaper man.” LOL, but after exposing some of Pittsburgh’s atrocious working conditions, was relegated to the dull society page stories and eventually quit in protest. That was Pittsburgh’s forever loss because she went on to enshrine herself in journalism history, writing landmark exposés, traveling around the world in a historically fast 72 days, and creating lasting societal change. But Pittsburgh let her go because she was angering our rich male industrialists. When she returned to Pittsburgh in 1890 following her trip around the world, she was so celebrated and welcomed by such a throng at the train station that she was LITERALLY HOISTED INTO THE AIR BY SOME MEN SO PITTSBURGHERS COULD GET A LOOK AT HER AND CHEER like she was baby Simba at Pride Rock.
Now she takes her place among two male Pittsburgh icons and I hope in doing so, more people will learn her amazing story and understand that no matter how long and hard you try to hold women back, eventually we will find a way to kick down the door behind which you’ve locked us.
As Nellie said in her short “I quit” note to the Dispatch, found after she just didn’t show up to work one day— “I am off … look out for me. Bly.”
Here it is, reproduced in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1890:
(Q.O. is Quiet Observer, the pen name of Pittsburg Dispatch columnist Erasmus Wilson.)
So the next time you’re at the airport, indeed, look out for Bly. And for the love of God, please, someone tell Commonwealth Press to make a Bly-themed “Look out for me” t-shirt so that they can take all our cash dollar billz.
4. Speaking of the airport
The sixth gun of the year attempting to be carried onto a fight at Pittsburgh International Airport was confiscated this week, this one fully loaded along with two loaded magazines just tucked away in a carry-on.
This will surprise no one: it was a Florida Man. Also:
Thirty-two were found over the course of 2021. Nationwide, TSA officers detected 5,972 firearms on passengers or their carry-on bags at checkpoints last year. Of the guns caught by TSA in 2022, about 86% were loaded.
I know I’ve said this before, but as someone who worries they might have an errant four ounces of orange juice forgotten in a bag’s inner pocket, I need someone to explain to me how a person forgets about the loaded gun in their carry-on bag and how it happens nearly 6,000 times a year.
Does anyone have Madison Cawthorn’s email address? Maybe he can explain it to me.
We are living in the absolute stupidest time.
5. Explaining the pork shortage in Pittsburgh
If there’s one thing Pittsburghers believe in, it’s sports superstition. If there’s another thing Pittsburghers believe in, it’s latching onto specific moments in local sports history and enshrining them forever in our lore (See: Maxime Talbot’s shush and the Cu-e-to chant).
As such, the famed Spicy Pork and Broccoli incident will never die. First, we have this:
Food and beverage provider Aramark served the dish in the arena’s media dining room before Game 3 in Pittsburgh, and lo and behold, the Pens won the game, 7-4. They also made a high-end version available to fans via Nakama’s concession stand in Section 105. It costs $19.50 and comes with a choice of fried rice or lo mein noodles.
Then the P-G published a hopefully-better-than-not-the-best recipe in case you want to make the dish as a good-luck charm before Pens’ games. And of course, the shirts have arrived:
Not the best, indeed.
I guarantee that in 15 years a Penguin’s goal call will be screeched out all “SPICY PORK AND BROCCOLIIIII!” and every single person, whether they were born before 2022 or after, will know exactly the origin.
Somewhere, Dr. Oz just said to his wife, “Honey, can we have spicy pork and a broccoli for dinner tonight?”
I’ll never ever ever ever stop.
6. And I’m already near my email length because I used lots of images because I do what I want. You’ll live. Have a great week! If you wish to scream at me about my comments on the patriarchy, here’s the number:
Press 2 and ask to speak to my robot mother. She’ll take the message. I swear.