To the guy in the black Pontiac sedan with the out-of-state plates, I apologize, but I have an explanation.
I was on Forbes Avenue in the Oakland part of Picksberg Thursday night, when I heard someone calling me. For all I know, it could have been Bruce Bedspring himself. "Excuse me?" he said again. "Hello? Excuse me?" I tried to ignore him, because I knew what he was going to ask for.
Finally, he pulled alongside me and I couldn't avoid making eye contact. "Hi," he said. "Can you tell me how to get to Darragh Street? Is it somewhere around here?"
My mind raced. Is that the one up by Presbyterian hospital? No, that's O'Hara Street. Or is O'Hara Street the one in front of Western Psych? Which one is "Cardiac Hill" --- DeSoto Street? You know, in East McKeesport, it's spelled DeSota Street. They stopped making DeSotos in 1960, and the official announcement was made during the Pittsburgh Auto Show --- which didn't much for the morale of the people working the DeSoto exhibit, I'm sure ...
"I'm sorry," I said, "I don't know where it is. Sorry." He gave me a look that spoke volumes: Stupid jerk, lives in this town and can't even give me some simple directions. He drove about a block up the street, and I saw him stop in front of another pedestrian and ask them the same question. I crossed to the other side of the street to avoid him.
There are two reasons I hate giving directions. First, I can count on one hand the times that I've actually gotten useful directions from a stranger. If you're really, really lucky, and you're in a city neighborhood, you might spot a cop, a firefighter or a mail carrier, who might actually know where a street is. Nine times out of 10, however, all you find are slack-jawed yokels who mutter and point vaguely; follow their directions, and you are doomed to get seriously lost.
If you're in a residential neighborhood, it's even worse. Slow to a stop in front of someone's house and lean out the window, and they instantly think you're a child molester.
Time was you could stop at a service station and ask directions, but nowadays you're more likely to find a gum-cracking 18-year-old behind the counter who's more interested in talking on his or her cell phone than giving directions, much less selling gas, cigarettes and Doritos. For that reason, I always carry a map when I'm traveling.
The second problem is that when I'm walking around, I am that slack-jawed yokel. Stop me in Our Fair City or any of its immediate suburbs, and I might be able to give you directions. Unfortunately, they're going to be of the caliber of "take a right just past the place where R&J Furniture used to be, and then hang another right onto Walnut, and then make the immediate left onto Shaw Avenue ... or is that Sixth? I think it's Shaw. You'll see Stickrath's old place."
I've done this a few times, and you can watch the driver's eyes glaze over as they realize they've inadvertently struck up a conversation with a complete nut. Pretty soon, he's saying, "Thank you! Thank you!" and letting the car drift forward, because he's trying to escape.
So my direction-giving ability isn't great to begin with. It drops exponentially the further you get from the intersection of the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers. Not long ago, I was standing in front of Falce's Restaurant on Main Street in Munhall, waiting for a friend of mine so that we could eat breakfast, when a young couple with two children in tow approached me. They were carrying a package.
"Excuse me, please," said the woman, in a thick Russian accent. "Tell me, please, where is post office?"
Post office? Erg. I immediately thought of two: The one in Whitaker and the big one on Eighth Avenue in Homestead. I wasn't hardly going to send these people on a wild goose chase to Whitaker. They might take a wrong turn on one of the dead-end back streets and never be heard from again. But surely they could find Eighth Avenue, right?
"Do you have a car?" I asked. They did.
With great difficulty, I explained how they could go down Main Street onto West Street, around the old Homestead Hospital, then down to the bottom of the hill and onto Eighth Avenue. They were just leaving as my friend walked up.
He and I went inside Falce's. "Who were those people?" he said.
"They needed directions to the post office," I said. "I think I got them hopelessly lost."
"Why? Where did you send them?" he asked.
"The post office. Down on Eighth Avenue."
He laughed. "You dummy," he said, "there's a post office two blocks up the street here, across from the fire hall."
For all I know, that couple is currently wandering around Duck Hollow, saying, "We should have stayed in Russia."
...
Meanwhile, Kaufmann's is dead, and I don't feel so good myself. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know by now that Federated Department Stores has confirmed that it's dumping the name "Kaufmann's" from its Pittsburgh-area stores once it completes its takeover of the May Company.
If misery truly loves company, than you'll be happy to know that they're just as distraught in Boston, where Filene's is being nuked (but not Filene's Basement, which is owned by someone else now); in St. Louis, which is losing Famous-Barr; in Washington and Baltimore, which will say goodbye to Hecht's, and elsewhere around the country. All of those storied names are being replaced by Macy's. Two Mon-Yough area Kaufmann's stores --- Monroeville Mall and South Hills Village --- are slated to close as well.
All of Pittsburgh's great department store names --- Gimbels (originally Kaufmann & Baer), Joseph Horne Co., Frank & Seder, Rosenbaum's, and now, Kaufmann's --- will thus be gone.
There's a bitter irony in that Pittsburgh is finally experiencing what Our Fair City (Cox's, Jaison's, Immel's, anyone?) and Greensburg (Troutman's and Royer's) went through in the '80s, and Washington (Lang's) went through in the '90s. (Rick Stouffer had a nice overview of Kaufmann's history in the Trib several months ago.)
I was recently given an envelope full of never-before-seen photos of Cox's by an anonymous contributor. In honor of Kaufmann's demise, they're coming to Tube City Online; check Monday's Almanac for details.
...
To Do This Weekend: If you missed Bruce Bedspring (and can't wait for the Dead-Enders), make sure to see his friends Joe Grushecky and The Houserockers tomorrow night at Riverfront Park, Water Street between Fifth and Ninth Avenues ... Also, Elizabeth Riverfest begins with a parade through the borough tonight at 6. Food, games and craft booths open at 4 p.m. tomorrow. ... Chalfant Borough presents a free outdoor screening of "Shrek 2" at Serviceman Park, starting at 9 tonight. Kids receive free popcorn.
Wonders may never cease: U.S. Steel is repainting the Edgar Thomson Plant in Braddock. Over the past two weeks or so, the gray and brown patina of the long metal mill buildings along Braddock Avenue has been replaced, by a bright, clean coat of white paint, no less. (Can you imagine a steel mill being painted white 30 years ago? Pollution controls have come a long way.)
And there's big, shiny black lettering on the sides of the buildings now, too: "United States Steel Corporation." The general office building got a paint job, too, and a new sign. I can't remember the last time I saw a steel mill get a new coat of paint, although one of the buildings at Clairton Works got a billboard-style sign several years ago.
To paint the entire mill white signifies that pride, and a little swaggering confidence, is back in style at U.S. Steel. And why not? Profits were up 16 percent in the last quarter, Wall Street brokers like the company's stock (although they're a fickle lot), and U.S. Steel's gamble in Serbia is paying off, as Len Boselovic reported in a series of stories for the Post-Gazette.
True, basic steelmaking is far from healthy in this country. Several producers have been in and out of bankruptcy for the past 10 years, and LTV Steel dried up and blew away a few years ago. Pressure from state-subsidized steel mills in China and elsewhere --- who can crank out tons of product unhampered by such niceties as pollution controls, safety regulations or living wages --- has seen to that. Even steel producers that specialize in high-quality (and high margin) finished products are having trouble competing on a decidedly unlevel playing field.
But --- but! --- if you'd told me when I was a kid that U.S. Steel would still be around in 2005, and would be giving the Edgar Thomson Works a nice coat of white paint, I'd have thought you were crazy. Heck, if you'd have told anyone 20 years ago that we'd be rooting for U.S. Steel, they'd have said you were crazy. I know a lot of people who refused to buy gas at Marathon Oil when U.S. Steel bought it. Now, there's a Marathon station right on West Fifth Avenue --- you can see the stacks at Irvin Works from its parking lot --- and I've got a Marathon credit card.
And I always laugh when people tell me that Pittsburgh doesn't make steel any more. What are they making at Edgar Thomson, toothpicks? What are they rolling out at Irvin, draperies? What is all of that pipe at Camp-Hill Corp. in Our Fair City made out of, bamboo?
Of course, steel's contribution to the local economy is only a fraction of what it was years ago; while I don't know what the Mon-Yough area's economic future is based on, it seems unlikely that it's steelmaking.
I also suspect it's not retail and service jobs, despite the success of The Waterfront. Rob Rogers had a great cartoon in the P-G last week about the new Pittsburgh Mills shopping complex up near Tarentum. A steelworker is asking a diner waitress, "Remember when 'Pittsburgh Mills' meant American dominance in steel?" In the last panel, we see him behind the counter at the food court: "May I take your pretzel order?"
Indeed. If we all end up with service and retail jobs, to whom will we sell our greasy fast food and overpriced Chinese-made plastic tschotchkes? I suspect that not too many retail clerks can afford to eat at the restaurants in The Waterfront, other than maybe Chick-Fil-A, Steak 'n Shake and McDonald's. Even then, $5.75 an hour, minus taxes, doesn't stretch too far. There's a middle ground somewhere; we just haven't found it yet.
I also suspect --- no, I know --- that all of the malarkey we were sold during the '80s about retraining people for highly-paid jobs in healthcare, computer technology and the lot was just that. Not everyone is suited to sit behind a desk, and there isn't an infinite need for computer jockeys, anyway. We need some kind of employment where people who have skills and a willingness to work hard physically (rather than only mentally) are rewarded. I don't think the local economy --- let alone the American economy --- is going to stay healthy if manufacturing goes down the drain completely.
Anyway, that's for wiser minds than mine to puzzle over. I'm just happy to see U.S. Steel walking tall again in its second century.
Would I like to see some more manufacturing around the Mon-Yough area again? Uh, sure, but I'm not holding my breath.
For now, I'll accept the fresh paint at E.T. It beats the hell out of a "For Sale" sign any day of the week.
...
In other news, they're ice-skating in hell today, and was that a pig that just flew past my window? Great googly-moogly, I agree with the Post-Gazette editorial board, which says much the same thing I wrote in the Tuesday Almanac ("For Whom the Bell Knolls") about the made-for-media Catherine Baker Knoll "controversy":
But with the greatest sympathy to the family, some of the other objections to Mrs. Knoll's presence at the funeral seem based on misconceptions. Most funerals are not private and the obituary notice in the paper did not say this one was. Indeed, the church in Carnegie was filled to overflowing for the funeral on July 19 -- and not all of this crowd would have been "invited." ...
It is a good thing -- not bad -- that Mrs. Knoll has been going to funerals for fallen servicemen -- and not just that of Staff Sgt. Goodrich. The state of Pennsylvania should be represented on such occasions, as a mark of respect and sympathy from the highest levels of the state government.
Choosing a mate, buying a house, declaring allegiance to a sports team ... they're all important, life-changing decisions. But to me, the most important choice that a red-blooded 'merkun male can make is a barber.
I've been going to the same barbershop for more than four years. It's a real, honest-to-goodness barbershop, not a damned hair salon or "family styling center," which means a honest-to-goodness barber cuts my hair, not some giggly 20-year-old girl. (And just to prove that I'm not a complete Neanderthal, they have a lady barber, too, but she's a solid, salt-of-the-earth type whose name isn't Brittany or Tiffany or Amber.)
I tried some of those "hair care" places, including all of the major chains. It seemed like every time I went, there were kids running all over the place, toys on the floor, women with their hair being put in curlers, and mirrored waiting rooms with giant glossy posters of androgynous people with frosted hair. There was almost always a boom box somewhere blasting out Kiss FM. Whenever I left it would take me hours to get the stink of perm solution and Bubble Yum out of my nose.
The barbershop that I use has Wahl clippers, straight razors and combs soaked in that greenish liquid (I think it's called barbicide, which sounds like something that happens when a mobster is angry over his haircut). The chairs where you wait have copies of Sports Illustrated and The Sporting News, not US and People. And the place is always busy, which tells me I'm not the only guy who doesn't want to get his hair cut in a beauty parlor.
It hasn't all been sweetness and light, as I've written about before. The shop recently raised the price of a haircut again, to $13, which strikes me as unfair ... at least to customers like me. I have half as much hair as most of the people there. Why should I pay the same price as everyone else? If you have a 1/4-acre lot, you don't pay the same to get your grass cut as a guy who has two acres, do you? A cynic might point out that it takes the barber that much longer to cut my hair because he has so much less to work with, but I digress.
Otherwise, in the main (or is that "mane"?), I'm happy with my barber. Except for one thing. I moved to North Bittyburg, on the edge of Our Fair City, almost one year ago. The barbershop is way over on the opposite side of Our Fair City and one town over. It wasn't so bad when I worked out in that direction, or even when I was regularly shopping in that part of town, but now it takes me a half-hour drive to get a haircut, which strikes me as a little foolish, especially when gas costs $2.30 a gallon.
So, the big life-changing question is: Should I find a new barbershop? There are two near my house and both have been there for a long, long time. They're run by guys with old-fashioned barber names like Vinnie and Dominic, and for my money, if a guy is willing paint his first and last name on the shop window, he must feel pretty confident in the quality of his haircuts.
But how do I check them out to make sure they do nice work? Based on the look of both shops, I have a strong suspicion that their regular clientele consists of retirees who get crewcuts or "baldies." If I walk in there, is the barber going to give me a crewcut, too? I still fancy myself young enough that I don't want to get a haircut that makes me look like an Alabama sheriff's deputy in 1958.
On the other hand, I also like a haircut that disguises (OK, not well) my bald spots, and presumably a barber who caters to guys in the 60s and 70s is going to be used to doing those kinds of jobs. (But for crying out loud, I don't want a combover. I still have a little bit of dignity left.)
It's too bad there isn't a rating system for barbers like there is for restaurants, or that barbershops aren't reviewed like movies. ("Tony Giacodomo's latest trim started out briskly, but began to drag toward the end, and the tight, well-planned trim along the sides was undermined by pronounced shagginess at the collar.")
I suppose I could stake the place out and watch the customers going in and out, maybe even take before and after photos. But that won't prove anything, will it? If the guy goes in asking for a "high and tight," a bowl cut, or a mullet, and the barber gives it to him, that doesn't prove he's a bad barber.
Eventually, I guess, I'm going to have to bite the bullet and try one of the shops. And if things go completely wrong, at least I have a large selection of hats to wait until the damage grows out. Or in my case, falls out.
I'm at a loss to understand the whole Catherine Baker Knoll kerfuffle. In brief, she attended the funeral Mass for a Marine, Staff Sgt. Joseph Goodrich, who was killed in Iraq. Goodrich had previously worked as a police officer at Kennywood, in Indiana Borough, and in Our Fair City. The family complained, loudly, to the local media that she was uninvited and that she gave an aunt one of her business cards, which gave the appearance that she was campaigning. (Knoll has since apologized.)
I'm no Catherine Baker Knoll fan. In fact, from talking over the years with people who have worked for her and with her, I'd say my impressions of her aren't totally favorable, and I think Rendell could have found a stronger lieutenant governor --- particularly since the last two lieutenant governors (Mark Singel and Mark Schweiker) both ended up serving as governor at times.
Still, this whole thing smelled of a political smear job, and the media lapped it right up. First, since when does someone need an invitation to go to a funeral? Second, how else does one introduce one's self in professional life other than handing out a calling card?
Third, and most importantly, as a friend pointed out to me yesterday in a conversation, someone from state government darned well ought to be attending these funerals as a sign of respect. Who better than Knoll, who's the lieutenant governor and is from Western Pennsylvania?
Like I said, the whole thing smelled funny, and a story in Tuesday's Post-Gazette hints that the relative who made the loudest complaints might have had an ulterior motive. (It turns out she's politically active in the Republican Party in Indiana County.)
Knoll did two things which were tacky, and deserved scorn. The first was telling at least one person that she was against the war in Iraq. Nice job: Tell the family of a dead Marine that his service to his country was in vain. That'll earn you some points. The second was giving interviews to TV crews outside the church; the event was supposed to be about Sgt. Goodrich, not her. She should have politely declined to go on camera.
For those two things, she should have been chastised, but her mere presence at the funeral was not offensive in and of itself. And if anything, the people who turned this into a media spectacle about Catherine Baker Knoll's conduct --- thus diverting attention away from Sgt. Goodrich's life and work --- were equally as tasteless as Knoll's comments.
Can we thus get off of the bash-Cathy Knoll bandwagon, and refocus ourselves on paying tribute to Sgt. Goodrich for making the ultimate sacrifice for his country?
Some years ago, convinced that the quality of international reporting in much of the American media was, to put it mildly, krep, I started reading a number of foreign publications, including the Canadian newsmagazine Macleans, which carried some excellent reporting from inside Afghanistan and Iraq during 2000, 2001 and 2002. (Lately, with a new editor in charge and a new focus on "lifestyle" stories, the magazine has been woefully uneven. Macleans seems to be turning into a Canuck version of Newsweek, which is not what I subscribed for, and that may lead me to drop it.)
Of course, a side benefit of reading Macleans is that I know more about Canadian politics than anyone, including a Canadian, would care to. That Stephen Harper is quite a guy, let me tell you! (Or maybe not.)
I also subscribed to Private Eye, the British political and satire magazine, mostly because I was already reading a lot of their cartoons and features online, and wanted to be able to read the rest of the articles. It's fairly expensive for an overseas subscription to the Eye; at £38 (pounds sterling), my last renewal worked out to ... um, let me see ... carry the 1 ... well, it was expensive. And a fair number of jokes go over my head in each issue, or at least send me scurrying to the Internet to look up the reference, but that's to be expected, since the Eye is meant for a strictly domestic audience.
Nevertheless, the magazine never fails to give me at least one belly laugh in every issue (under the headline "Pope Condemns Harry Potter for Corrupting Children," we see a photo of Pope Benedict captioned, "That's traditionally the job of the Catholic church"), and even the inside tales of malfeasance in Parliament, on Fleet Street, or out in the suburbs of London (the "rotten boroughs," in Eye parlance) are well-written enough to be entertaining. You don't necessarily need to know the characters, in other words, to find the stories good reading.
How to describe the Eye? I'd describe it as a blend of The Onion with the late, almost-forgotten Spy; but unlike the former, the Eye carries a fair amount of serious investigative reporting, and unlike the latter, the Eye cares more about lampooning politicians and journalists than celebrity gossip. In each issue of the Eye, for instance, Tony Blair is lampooned as the pious, pompous, self-aggrandizing vicar of "St. Albion's Parish" on a page laid out in the style of a church newsletter. The "parish news" usually includes a message from Rev. Blair's American counterpart, the Rev. Dubya of the Church of the Latter-Day Morons. (Um, ouch.)
There's also literary, TV and architectural criticism that wouldn't be out of place in The New Yorker, except that the Eye's critics are considerably more vicious. (Most of the pieces in the Eye are written either anonymously or under pseudonyms. Even the ownership is something of a mystery.)
When Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide a few months ago, the Eye savaged both his later, pedestrian work and the American and British journalists who produced long, overwrought, fawning obituaries. It's a pity that the Eye puts almost nothing online, because I no longer have the epitaph, but it was accompanied by a sketch of Thompson (done in the style of his longtime collaborator, Ralph Steadman), blowing his brains out. The following issue carried several letters commenting on the column and illustration; one writer said, "If you keep printing offensive material like that, I shall have no choice but to continue my subscription."
Needless to say, I was anxious to see how the Eye would handle the terrorist bombings in London. They wouldn't wimp out, would they?
The new issue arrived today, and I wasn't disappointed. Bombing spoofs and critiques of media coverage take up several pages. (A BBC executive is savaged for sending out a memo to staff praising its "highlights" and "briiliant performances." "Yes, 24-hour news channels actually covered a news story --- amazing!" says the Eye.) Inside, a double-page spread laid out in tabloid newspaper fashion is a riot of bold headlines and stories like:
LONDON CAN TAKE IT! SPIRIT OF BLITZ LIVES AGAIN
By Phil Space
We can survive! That was the gutsy response of millions of Londoners when they woke up to the shocking news that their city was to be subjected to the Olympic Games.
Said one cab driver, 76-year-old Monty Snozzer, "We lived through the Second World War --- they're not going to frighten us with a few velodromes and indoor volleyball parks."
It's astonishing to discover that the four suicide bombers who attacked London were, according to reports, 'normal people.' One liked sport. Another owned a car. One had a house, with doors ... and windows. Another had parents. All of them had heads.
Perhaps all we can really conclude is that their normalness was so normal that their normalness was abnormal in its normality.
In normal circumstances, the London bombings would provide yet more proof that the Bush strategy is flawed and dangerous. Yet so debased has the debate on terrorism and the Middle East become here that the administration can brazenly claim that the London attacks justify its misguided policies. As the commander-in-chief put it: "The war on terror goes on."
The populist/fundamentalist/plutocratic coalition which has captured power in Washington learned long ago that the (global war on terror) is a wonderful way to distract attention from the administration's failures, lies and misdemeanours, of stifling serious political debate, of curtailing civil liberties, of whipping up vote-winning patriotism, of making billions more from military/oil/security contracts, and of hastening the Second Coming of the Lord. It's a no-brainer.
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