Greetings from an Amtrak train heading to Philly!
Yes, I’m on a train. Because I had to go to Philly so I figured why not go by train since I never have. No driving. No airport shiz (TSA’s official term). Big seats. Big window. Gives me time to write this for you. And to nap.
Let’s get to it!
1. Shades of Acrisure — specifically the color of poop
Acrisure. Man, it still rolls off the tongue like you’re chewing on broken seashells. Ack-ri-sure. Ack. Rhymes with blech. I’m still not over it. Still not accepting it. Still planning to loosen the bolts on the sign so it will fall to the ground and shatter into a million pieces*. I am joking, FBI. I’m not really going to do that; I’m actually planning to light it on fire.
Take heart, though, Pittsburgh, as we aren’t the only city getting a new and extremely shitty stadium name. Behold, the city of Cincinnati. Home of the Bengals. The Reds (bite me, Joey Votto, you trash person). Paul Brown Stadium. Not anymore.
The Bengals will have a new name for their home stadium. The facility formerly known as Paul Brown Stadium will now be called Paycor Stadium, the team announced Tuesday.
Paycor. Is it missing an ending letter. Like an E or a P or something that would make it seem like the person naming it didn’t fall asleep halfway through their job? Is this a typo?
Is it “paycor” rhymes with “maker?” Or “paycor” rhymes with “evermore”? Is it a payday loan scam business? A Batman villain’s corporation? Either way, Cincinnati is still coming out better than Pittsburgh because Paycor is at least based in Cincy. Unlike Acrisure which is based IN HELL.
I’ll never be okay, you guys.
*I’m sure Acrisure insured it. Man, I bet that’s their tagline.
2. Speaking of pronunciations
I chose to take this train from the Amtrak station in Latrobe because it would be less crowded and a shorter trip, and here’s the thing. Latrobe? Home of Fred Rogers and Arnold Palmer? Adorable. Love it. My son flies planes out of the Arnold Palmer airport. It’s a quaint, old-timey little town … with a train station that belongs IN HELL.
Here’s me waiting for the train at a station with NO HUMANS. Just a crumbling platform with two benches, boarded-up windows, no signage, and graffiti greeting me kindly as “bichh,” which is how us young hip people spell bitch.
I don’t know what I expecte— yes I do. NOT THIS. However I safely boarded the train and all is well. But let’s talk about Latrobe real quick, specifically, the debate on how to pronounce the dang place.
First off, I’ll tell you I pronounce it lay-trobe (rhymes with “Acrisure is shit”), but lots of people say lah-trobe or luh-trobe (they’re very similar to my ears). You can’t go by how I pronounce it though, because I’m super hard-of-hearing and people like me often mispronounce words because we learn words more by reading than by hearing, so we create incorrect pronunciations in our heads until we hear the word in the real world and then we are embarrassed and crawl into our shame boxes for six days.
To put this debate to rest, the person we should listen to is Arnold Palmer and he says (you’ll hear it in the first 12 seconds):
Case closed. Shit gotten to the bottom of. Don’t email me just because you’re like me and you pronounce it wrong. I also used to say “Mardi Grass,” so why the hell are you listening to me?
Luh-trobe — the place where you can board the train to hell or get murdered trying.
And yes, The Latrobe Bichhes is the name of my new female rock band. Or bowling team. I can’t decide.
3. Is that a cannon in your luggage or are you just …
As I’ve said before, my thought process while dealing with airport security, whether they be drug-sniffing dogs or TSA agents basically goes, “Wow. I hope I didn’t do cocaine and forget about it even though I’ve never even so much as smoked a nicotine cigarette. Did I pack a bomb? Hope not. Good doggie. No bombs here. Don’t say bomb. But no bombs here. Wonder if there’s a loaded gun in my pockets. Hope I didn’t pack explosives in the soles of my shoes. How embarrassing.”
When I forget about a bottle of water in my backpack and the TSA agent finds it?
Recently the TSA discovered a passenger at Pittsburgh International Airport (soon to be renamed something dumb like CorpBizInc Terminal) had hidden some marijuana vape cartridges in …
Peanut butter. From a TSA spokesperson:
“The traveler told officials that the canisters were for medical purposes, but still thought he should try to conceal them. Not a good decision.”
Also not a good decision? These:
Like, I literally researched to make sure I could carry TWEEZERS on this here train and people in Pittsburgh are just tossing military ordnance in their suitcase next to their giant-ass pill organizers like it’s no thing and then trying to bring them on an airplane. “Got my vitamin D, my calcium, my blood pressure meds, my FiberCon** and my MILITARY GRADE WEAPONRY. Myrtle, here we come.”
The thing I’m learning the most via these TSA updates is that I need to chill out more and realize no one cares about my deadly nail clippers when what they’re really looking for are live grenades or five ounces of water.
**FiberCon Terminal at Pittsburgh International. Just watch.
4. Politics BOOM!
And this is the section that is going to require me to give you all a customer service line this week so you have a place to scream your anger.
As you know, Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate, January 6 insurrectionist*** and Christian nationalist**** Doug Mastriano has a history of making comparisons to the Holocaust. I’m sure you also know that the only thing you should compare the Holocaust to is the Holocaust, just like the only thing you should compare slavery to is, you know, slavery. Some things stand completely alone in their wickedness, depravity, and immorality.
In June of 2020 he compared the tearing down of Confederate monuments to the fact that Auschwitz still stands as a reminder of what happened. “NEVER TEAR DOWN MEMORIALS!” he posted on Facebook. If I have to explain to you the difference between a regal statue celebrating a failed Confederate insurrectionist and an actual memorial museum dedicated to ensuring history isn’t repeated, you should probably skip this part and go directly to the customer service line and scream, “I’M WILLFULLY IGNORANT” at whoever picks up.
Then there’s the whole Gab fiasco, which you can read about here.
In light of all this criticism about his far-right ideology and his comparisons of non-Holocaust things to the Holocaust, Mastriano deleted his Gab account, distanced himself from the Gab founder whom he had hired as a consultant, and pushed back against accusations of anti-semitism by pointing toward his campaign kickoff where…
“We had a shofar, a prayer shawl,” Mastriano said in remarks that were livestreamed on Facebook, ”and then suddenly … you’re an antisemite. Like, make up your mind! You know, you have too much Jewishness in your events, now you’re antisemitic.”
“Too much Jewishness.” Lol. Oh, buddy. Like racists have adopted the Betsy Ross flag, shofars have been adopted (and weirdly so) by the far-right (see super weird photo here), and it’s honestly creepy. YMMV.
If I have to explain to you the difference between APPROPRIATING Jewish symbolism and actually respecting the religion and the people who observe it, as one would expect one should do in a country founded on the idea of freedom of religion … the abyss. Go to it. Scream.
No one here is listening to you.
*** and ****: If you are going to try to tell me those labels are incorrect, I’m going to come back at you with actual proof because please remember I’m a history Master’s student and I always have my sources ready to go. I don’t even bring tweezers on a train unless my sourcing is AIR. TIGHT.
5. Sledding down a snowy hill in my Turner’s crate
I’m pretty sure that somewhere in Pennsylvania there is an entire horse barn constructed only with orange Turner’s crates. They’re sturdy. Bright. Easy to acquire and to “accidentally never give back.” The other week I was in Walmart and inside one of the refrigerated display tanks were stacks of orange Turner’s crates. Nothing in them. No price shown. Just crates. When I tell you it took all of my self-control not to throw three of them in my buggy and abscond with them like a Person of Walmart.
You probably have a Turner’s crate somewhere in your house and Turner’s knows this and Turner’s would like it back, so much so that they offered free tickets to their recent birthday bash in exchange for the orange cubed currency. “Yeah, how much for an Ahrn?” “Four Turner’s crates.” “Damn inflation. Use’da be three. Thanks, Brandon.”
Nailed it.
Like I said. It’s Yinzer currency. And I’m extremely poor in it because I’m a rule-follower. You owe me, Turner’s.
Someone steal me a crate though.
6. Ugh. History is so cool.
I’m nearly done with the first round of research for my project to map the remains of old Pittsburgh places and buildings. I’ve named my project/map/future coffee table book(?) “Pittsburgh Remains to be Seen.”
I’ll give you a moment to gape in awe at the perfection of that name.
I just wanted to share two really great things I’ve found so you can get an idea of the kind of artifacts I want you to tell me about that I might be unaware of. Here’s a picture of a still-standing section of the Forbes Field outfield wall in Oakland alongside a picture the Clemente Museum graciously scanned in for me showing Roberto blazing around the bases with said wall in the background.
Perfect. And here’s one I haven’t tweeted out so that’s why you see the edit toggles, etc. This is the Point Bridge stone that sits in Station Square, alongside a 1932 photo of it still on the long-gone structure:
You don’t want to know how many historical images I had to hunt through to find that. So that’s the kind of stuff this map will feature. If you can think of any I might not know about or have thought to include, just let me know and I’ll do the research.
7. And let’s end it here!
Have a great week! Send me artifact tips! And if you’re angry about my Mastriano comments you want to call NASA at (202) 358-0001 and press extension 666 for directions to the nearest black hole.
You might feel a strong sucking force, but I promise you it’s safe.
See you next week, the rest of you!