June 29, 2006

CSX: Clean Up Your Mess!

These pictures illustrate the dangerous conditions at the River Road grade crossing in Port Vue --- caused apparently by a CSX railroad repair project that was never completed.

After a week, CSX still hasn't responded to our question, so the Almanac is going to the state PUC.

Motorists from McKeesport, Liberty and Port Vue have been dodging this mess for more than a month. Some laborers were at the crossing this week, leading to hope that the damage might finally be repaired --- no such luck, as these photos, taken a few hours ago, illustrate.

Please, CSX: Fix your damned crossing!

Posted at 9:38 pm by jt3y
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June 28, 2006

Fuzzy Logic

I didn't mention it at the time, because it had nothing to do with Our Fair City or the Mon-Yough area, but parts of our region are apparently still recovering from Anthrocon.

This is a national convention of people who collect art, comic books, stories, videos ("murals, postcards, neckties, samplers, stained glass windows, tattoos!") featuring anthropomorphic (walking, talking, or otherwise acting like people) animals.

At its basic level, this amounts to an enthusiasm for Walt Disney and Warner Brothers cartoons and anime, much like people might be engrossed in fantasy baseball, or "Star Trek."

But as with every hobby, some folks go to extremes; there's a whole subculture of people who are turned on by anthro porn. And no, the Almanac does not intend to link to any of those sites.

(I'm reminded of Garth's comment to Wayne in "Wayne's World": "Did you ever find Bugs Bunny attractive when he'd put on a dress and play a girl bunny?")

In between, there are folks who like to dress up in "fursuits" and walk around costumed completely or partially as their favorite animals, and to his dismay, Officer Jim, Alert Reader and Sometime Guest Almanacker, found some video shot in Picksberg and the rest of the Greater McKeesport area. He writes:

Oh. My. I just ... I can't possibly describe how ... there are no words that can convey just how creeped out watching this clip made me feel. I must now go wash out my memory.

To tell you the truth, Officer Jim, maybe five years of working in Oakland, and four years of school there, numbed me, but this barely nudges my Weird-o-Meter. In my lifetime, I've seen:

• Grown men get into screaming fights over whose toy trains are allowed to run where;
  
  
• PhD candidates roll dice to determine whether their dragon will be slain by an "orc"; and,
  
  
• People lighting candles on top of skulls to summon spirits from the netherworld to bless their new year.

Also, I've seen the Pirates play what is charitably called "baseball." Talk about real horror shows.

And let's face it: In McKeesport over the last few years, we've had a person critically wounded when an amateur surgeon performed a castration on their dining room table; a girl who was allegedly locked in a bedroom for almost 10 years by a school security guard; and someone microwaving a fake penis in a convenience store at the corner of Walnut and Fifth.

So, dressing up as an animal and walking around the Golden Triangle may be odd, but on a weirdness scale of 1 to 10, with Perry Como being a "1" and Michael Jackson being a "10," this is no more than a "6," along with people who go to Star Trek conventions dressed as Lt. Worf. Shriners riding around in little cars might be a "2" or a "3." Mimes would be a "4" or "5."

. . .

One curious thing I did notice: All of these fursuiters seem to pick totem animals like wolves, dogs, foxes, lions, tigers, horses, zebras, etc. --- in other words, creatures known for their beauty, or their cunning, or their nobility.

No one ever seems to want to dress up as a stink bug, a sewer rat, or a leech.

. . .

In other business, don't ask me how I stumbled onto this, but I did, and it's just in time for Independence Day (the day, not the movie).

First, I thought Cracked magazine (actually Cracked mazagine if I remember correctly) had gone out of business, but apparently it's back.

Second, maybe I need to grow up, because I thought it was funny: "What if Fox News Was Around During the American Revolution?"

. . .

Finally, apropos of Friday's Almanac, Dave Copeland offers helpful hints for shaving one's head. Look, I give you guys (that is, yinz) who shave your heads a lot of credit. I just have no intention of doing it any time soon.

I'm just convinced that if I shave my head, although I'll be trying to look like this:



... instead, I'll look like this:



On the other hand, if a convention of people who like to dress up like their favorite Muppets comes to town, I'll be like a god to them.

Posted at 07:24 am by jt3y
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June 27, 2006

But I Knows What I Likes

Why don't I read Tunesmith & Anthony more often? Maybe I'm not too bright.

If I did, I would have learned last week that the sculptor who crafted the controversial "Hunky-Steelworker" statue for the Three Rivers Arts Festival has died at the age of 65 --- the result of a tragic accident in his studio.

A commission on which he was working --- a 30-foot-tall statue of a horse, to be installed at the Denver airport --- fell on top of him.

The artist, Luis Jimenez, who no doubt knew a thing or two about being a minority himself, said at the time he thought that "Hunky" was a term of endearment. Er, well, no. (Especially since the most common modifications of the word "hunky" were "dumb" and "stubborn.")

But it was a common enough term around these parts in the early part of the 20th century, and if art does imitate life, then it should have been allowed to stay on the statue. Or so I thought at the time.

Also, it was probably a bit much to coerce Jimenez into bowdlerizing his word, but Pittsburghers did. He took a chisel to the statue and knocked the word "hunky" off of it. It was a major tempest in a halushki pot back in 1990, and one of the earliest signs that we Picksbergers were becoming a tad hyper-sensitive about our image.

. . .

"Steel Worker," incidentally, is now installed at the UMass campus in Boston.

Question for folks at Carnegie Mellon: How come you guys got stuck with "Walking to the Sky," while UMass got "Steel Worker"? Did you lose a bet?

Good Lord, it reminds me of a bunch of model railroad people, packaged for sale on a plastic sprue.

I may be a hunky from McKeesport, but seriously --- I've seen more interesting "art" on sale at the flea market in North Versailles.

. . .

But it's about to get much, much worse for my dear alma mater: Over the objections of many faculty members and students, Carnegie Mellon is about to erect a truly ugly, ugly building at the heart of its campus.

The new Gates Center looks like a giant angry robot, lying in wait to devour students, or maybe a prison from some futuristic movie set in a totalitarian state.

Universities need to push envelopes and can't be locked to the past. Arguably, a lot of the recent construction on CMU's campus has been slavishly imitative of its old, classic Carnegie Tech buildings.

But there's got to be a happy medium between breaking away from tradition, and poking the neighborhood in the eye with a sharp stick. This thing makes the Lysle Boulevard Parking Garage look like a product of the Italian Renaissance.

I don't care how famous the Gates Center's architects might be, or how "delighted" your computer science department is. (What are they supposed to say? "No, we don't want a new building"?)

I say it's a damned ugly building, and 20 years from now, I predict it will be viewed as a colossal blunder.

. . .

Finally, remember that River Road grade crossing? Still no answer from CSX. Tonight, I'm going down to check and see if it was repaired. If not, I'm complaining to the state Public Utility Commission.

Tube City Almanac: Art Critic by day, Railroad Crossing Vigilante by night!

Posted at 08:21 am by jt3y
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