Sorry ... I was in the grip of la grippe (or something) on Friday. Food seems to be staying put again (urp!) but I'm sticking to nice, bland things for a few days, just in case.
Luckily, you don't have to avoid grease this weekend:
McKeesport Little Theater presents the musical "Grease" at 8 p.m. today and at a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday. Tickets are $15 or $7 for students (with a valid school ID card). (The Post-Gazette has a review here: "awkward and uneven in spots, but full of energy and conviction -- just like real teenagers.") The Little Theater is located at 1614 Coursin St., near the Carnegie Library. Call (412) 673-1100.
The Almanac spends a lot of time gassing off about slights (real and imagined), cruddiness, and other aggravations both minor and major. "Wouldn't it be nice," I hear a mythical straw man saying, "if just once you said something nice?"
Well, luckily for you, Mr. Hypothetical Example I Made Up Just For My Own Purposes, today's your day! Here's a few businesses that I like:
. . .
Jerry's Fine Used Records: I hadn't been to Jerry's Fine Used Records on Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill for several months, and was pleasantly surprised to find that Dave's Music Mine (a used CD store) and Heads Together (a video store specializing in the off-beat and off-the-wall) are now located on the same floor.
Say it with me: "You got your CDs in my vinyl!" "You got your vinyl in my CDs!"
I've been shopping at Jerry's for at least 15 years. I recommend a trip to anyone who likes music, even if they don't necessarily collect old records. If you can't find some genre of music you like at Jerry's --- from vintage rock 'n roll to European folk to 1920s jazz to hip-hop and ska --- you're not trying.
The inclusion of Dave's and Heads Together has decreased the floor space substantially, but the shelves are still overloaded with great music, terrible music, and everything in between. It doesn't matter if it's out of print or rare; chances are, Jerry Weber has a copy of it somewhere --- either in the store or stashed in his warehouse in Swissvale. In one recent interview he estimated his stock at 750,000 items. I believe him.
The best part is that his prices are eminently reasonable. I've been to a bunch of used record stores (including one late, lamented one in Our Fair City) where everything was priced at the very upper limit of what the value guides demand. Not so at Jerry's; most records are priced between $4 and $10. Even super-rarities seldom sell for more than $40.
And Jerry and his staff don't sell junk; these aren't moldy, scratched flea-market LPs. They've got their jackets and sleeves intact, and though many records aren't pristine, they're clean and playable.
Again, even if you don't collect records, I highly recommend a trip. Plan to spend an hour or more. If you don't have a working turntable, Jerry will happily sell you one of those, too.
I have a turntable (several, actually), and walked out last Saturday with a bizarre agglomeration including some vintage R&B, a copy of "Windfall" by Rick Nelson & The Stone Canyon Band, the audio version of a 1974 BBC-TV interview with Peter Sellers, and a copy of (so help me) "Arthur Godfrey's Golden Hits."
"Most of these records are never going to make it onto CD," Jerry said when I checked out.
"Some of them never should have been released on vinyl, either," I said.
Able True Value Home Center and R.C. Walters & Son: There are damned few real, honest-to-goodness hardware stores around. James Lileks lamented the other day that he went to Home Depot looking for a simple faucet washer, and couldn't find one:
"They didn't have them. I understood; no reason a hardware store the size of three counties in Montana would take up precious space on washers. Heck, if you decided to carry every washer in the world you'd have to put a whole wing on the back. This ain't the House of Washers, kid. Now, peanuts, you want peanuts, we got those."
ABC PhotoLab: After endorsing local, independent businesses, I'm about to recommend an out-of-town place that does most of its business over the Internet.
"You do digital photos from negatives?"
"Yep!"
"What DPI are they scanned at?"
"I don't know. I just work here."
"Well, how big are the files? 5-by-7? 8-by-10?"
"Um ... I don't know. Do you want me to call the main office?"
From Brian Lundmark's long-running webcomic, Rockwood.
The Valley Mirror reports that one of Braddock's few remaining businesses is leaving the borough. A.J. Silberman & Co., a wholesale grocer and tobacco distributor on Braddock Avenue, is relocating to Harmar Township, according to a front-page story by editor Tony Munson.
Munson writes that the key factor in Silberman's proposed move is Braddock's decision to retroactively collect a mercantile tax that was enacted in the 1970s, "but was not rigorously enforced."
The tax, according to Munson, amounts to 0.1 percent of sales for retailers and wholesalers. In July, the borough capped the tax at $40,000 in any calendar year, but they're claiming that Silberman is in arrears and owes back taxes, "which appears to have become an insurmountable problem," Munson writes.
According to the company's website, Silberman's was founded in 1935 in neighboring Rankin and currently serves about 2,200 independent restaurants, newsstands and convenience and grocery stores in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Munson says the company has about 100 employees.
This situation comes as neighboring West Mifflin continues its two-year-long p-ssing match with Kennywood over another case of selective enforcement.
Kennywood sued the borough when it learned that the West Mifflin amusement tax --- which theoretically should apply to arcades, driving ranges, theaters, bowling alleys and the like --- was only being collected from Kennywood.
No offense, but what is the matter with the council members in Braddock and West Mifflin? They seem to view the U.S. Constitution's "equal protection" clause with the same contempt as President Bush. Laws have to apply to everyone equally.
If Braddock didn't collect the mercantile tax for the last 30 years, that's Braddock's problem, not A.J. Silberman & Co.'s problem. And if West Mifflin has an amusement tax, it has to levy it against all amusement and entertainment facilities, not just the ones that it thinks are "rich."
Ultimately, these communities wind up shooting themselves in the feet. Braddock is poised to lose one of its few taxpaying, growing businesses (Silberman erected a brand-new half-million dollar warehouse about 10 years ago and also renovated an abandoned bank building for use as an office).
And Kennywood is buying other theme parks outside of Western Pennsylvania, like Story Land in New England, with money that (presumably) might otherwise have been invested in West Mifflin ... fattening the property and wage tax rolls.
Conservatives (Democratic and Republican) around Pennsylvania often spout off against consolidating school districts and communities. They talk about "local control" and how small, independent governments know what their communities need better than "bureaucrats" in Pittsburgh or Harrisburg.
If "local control" continues to give us short-sighted, mule-stubborn officials, then I'll take metropolitanism, please.
Dumb-da-dumb-dumb-dumb!
It helps to make sure the domain name isn't about to expire before you forward everything to it.
My bad. Working on it right now.
It's not easy to be this stupid, but I try harder.
Update: Y'know, I thought I'd get an email from Stargate before the domain expired, but I didn't.
But those 7,000 emails offering to enlarge my body parts? Those got through fine.
Also, the password that Stargate sent me to log in and renew the domain doesn't work. And no one is answering the phone at tech support.
Sometimes I wish Al Gore had never invented the Interweb tubes.
Update 2: We should be back up and running shortly at the new store ... the domain is now renewed through 2010.
Update 3: On Friday, as I was preparing for the big move, I went out for lunch. I got a fortune cookie when I paid:
Domain Name: TUBECITYONLINE.COM
Registrant:
n/a
Jason Togyer (jt3y@dementia.org)
P.O. Box 94
McKeesport
Pennsylvania,15134-0094
US
Creation Date: 16-Sep-2006
Expiration Date: 16-Sep-2010
Domain servers in listed order:
dns1.skymagik.net
dns2.skymagik.net
dns1.ch.securefw.net
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