Category: default || By jt3y

Well, it seems that Denver columnist Bill Johnson, frightened by the howls of protest from angry Stiller fans over his thinly-sourced screed in the Rocky Mountain News this week, has recanted. Sort of:

The people here, I will admit, are some of the nicest folks I have encountered in a decade. And even they will acknowledge --- if they are the slightest bit liquored-up --- what your eyes are screaming at you: The place is kind of grimy and, well, kind of ugly.

He has a funny way of apologizing ("funny peculiar," not "funny ha-ha"), I'll admit. He continues:

So what if you have a corrugated-steel lumber mill from the 19th century plopped right in the middle of the old neighborhood. In Denver, it would now be resting for eternity in a landfill. Here, they rip out just enough from the inside to turn it into gleaming, not-too-cheap condos, restaurants and office space.

The place where I ate breakfast, with its thick wood paneling, was a firehouse back in the 1800s. The old railroad station up the street? Today, it houses fancy cheese and wine shops, linen-tablecloth restaurants and boutiques.

And it continues in that vein, blah blah blah, he also discovers the Strip District, and Primanti Brothers, and Mike Feinberg Company (purveyors of Steeler memorabilia), and etc. I guess I'm glad he finally made it out of his hotel room and went, oh, about seven blocks.

(Tube City hard hat tips: The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat and Pittsblog.)

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Look, I don't care if Bill Johnson doesn't like Picksberg. I don't even like it some days:

I dislike the provincialism, and I dislike the ridiculous turf battles. We're still debating this week whether or not we should have county-wide 9-1-1 service, for crying out loud. Towns like Turtle Creek and North Versailles and Munhall are still dispatching their own police and fire calls, even though most people can't figure out where Munhall ends and West Mifflin begins.

I also dislike the way we bend over and grab our ankles every time a developer demands something. "Oh, PNC Bank, please, accept our free tax money in order to build your luxury condos in the Golden Triangle that most Picksbergers can't afford to live in." "Oh, Mr. Millionaire, please don't move your 11-27-and-9 hockey team and its $40 tickets out of town, we'll give you anything you want."

We're the most lonely girl at the dance, willing to do anything so that the cool kids will like us ... and they're laughing at us behind their backs as they take advantage of our desperation.

And I don't like the way people around here view the world as their garbage can. I suspect it's a holdover from the days when the rivers and skies ran thick with industrial pollution, and U.S. Steel and Jones & Laughlin dumped slag and scrap all over the place. Back then, what did it matter if you threw an extra candy wrapper out the window? Well, it matters now. Picksberg, Our Fair City, and their suburbs are some of the dirtiest areas of any metropolitan areas I've ever visited. Put your garbage in garbage cans, you slobs --- don't just throw it out the car windows.

And frankly, when I drive up the decaying Tri-Boro Expressway through East Pittsburgh, where the road is full of potholes and the street lamps don't work --- or up Duquesne Boulevard toward Kennywood, past the rusty blast furnace stoves at the old Duquesne Works --- or down Braddock Avenue in Braddock or State Street in Clairton, lined with abandoned buildings --- well, it all looks pretty damned butt-ugly to me. I love the Mon-Yough area, but the truth hurts.

Why would I blame an outsider who would think that littered landscapes and rusty, abandoned buildings are ugly? They are. Let's admit that, and fix it.

In the meantime, we pay high taxes that maintain tiny little school districts or tiny police dispatch centers that only serve a few thousand people, instead of demanding that those be consolidated.

Our tax money would be better spent on community development --- real community development, that is, not tax breaks for wealthy developers --- or even litter control programs, for goodness' sake.

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So I wasn't upset if some snotty columnist from Denver decided to score some cheap points by slagging off Picksberg. My ego is not so wrapped up in a city, or the Steelers, to care what some paid scrivener from Colorado cares about either one. If he doesn't like it here, that's fine by me.

I was more annoyed that he wrote such a trite, lazy column, in which he clearly distorted or misstated several things. And his "apology" isn't much better. Big deal --- he visited the obvious tourist hot spots. That didn't take much work. A chamber of commerce pamphlet would have told him about the Strip and the Grand Concourse.

I gave him an "F" for his first column. His extra credit work rates a "C-minus." That brings him up to a "D" average --- not too great, overall.

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But I'm also annoyed, frankly, that some loyal Picksbergers sent him some extremely nasty hate mail, which speaks poorly of the character of this region of supposedly "nice" people:

"Hey Bill, How are things up on BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN?? Nice and Clean?!?!?!?" "Bill Johnson is a moron!" "Mr. Johnson, you might want to look in the mirror before you call anybody butt-ugly. You are no prize pig yourself." "The light reflecting of your big a-- forehead looks metal gray in your picture." "I thiink (sic) you are butt ugly Bill Johnson." "Such a closed mind for such a big head." "You have some nerve calling The Burgh 'ugly' -- you look like a cracked-out Flip Wilson..."

You kiss your mothers with those mouths?

Nice job, yinzers. You wanted to show how classy our region is by stooping to the lowest possible level, eh? That'll teach him!

Even people from Denver don't talk like that. Learn to control yourselves. You can attack his work for being trite, but personal slurs are below civilized people.

On the other hand, if he ever writes anything bad about McKeesport, then I say all bets are off.

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To Do This Weekend: Penn-Trafford area students are invited to "Off The Street," a Friday night alternative program at Community United Methodist Church in Harrison City. Programs for middle schoolers run from 7 to 9 p.m., while high school programs start at 9 and run until 11 p.m. Call (724) 744-3413. ... Bulgarian-Macedonian Cultural Center in West Homestead presents live music, folk dancing and ethnic food Saturday night. Call (412) 461-6188.