Charming Pittsburgh-oriented media #10: New favorite

 

From latimes.com

Sorry, Striking Distance. There’s a new favorite Pittsburgh movie in town.

Yes, I saw Adventureland, and yes, it was fantastic. And yes, there was a ton of Kennywood in it. And the 16th Street Bridge, and fireworks, and the Monroeville Mall.

But unlike that beloved mess of a cop drama, this movie is actually very good. It deals very realistically with the small traumas and triumphs that make up our youth – including the pathos and drudgery of working a minimum wage job at a place where everyone is supposed to have fun.

The story centers on James, who is forced by family financial troubles to go home to Pittsburgh and work all summer instead of trekking through Europe with his Ivy League friends, and his coworkers at Kennyw– I mean Adventureland. They all are refugees of sorts, with problems and failures in their lives that lead them to work there, and they are all recognizable as the kind of people you knew when you were young, and maybe still know now. 

There’s some funniness, and some sadness. There’s mature handling of substance use and sex, and did I mention? There’s lots and lots of Kennywood.

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I love surprises

Okay, enough moping. Time to get back to business.

Living outside of Pittsburgh, I generally don’t know when new CPOM is coming out until it’s already here. So sure, I’ve seen the previews for Adventureland, but the booths and hot dog stands are nondescript enough that I didn’t realize it was Kennywood until I read about it today in the PG.

OMG Kennywood movie, is this great or what? 

I totally have weekend plans now, and they involve seeing a movie alone. 

Seriously, isn’t that kind of the CPOM holy grail, seeing Kennywood on the big screen? The whole allure of CPOM is to recognize the things that are special to us, like a little private joke between us and the filmmaker – “Yeah, I remember that too.” And what sweeter memories are there than summers and roller coasters and cotton candy? Kennywood represents those things not just to nostalgic young adults, but also to generations of Pittsburghers who have flowed in and out of its gates, our grandparents and our parents and our kids.

Kennywood is a special receptacle for memories, which is what will make it the place to be again this summer. And will make Adventureland the place to be this weekend.

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Charming Pittsburgh-oriented media #9: The Odyssey

Jim Wexell is a freelance writer who has covered the Steelers for ages, and now publishes SteelCityInsider.com. And he’s had an experience that inspires one specific emotion in Steeler fans.

Envy.

Deep, profound, unadulterated envy for Wex’s journey across the country for the Steelers’ entire road schedule in 2007, going to Steeler bars all over America, tailgating, attending games, and hanging out with the ultimate Steelers insiders – the players’ friends and family.

Lucky bastard.

Wex documents his odyssey in the book Steeler Nation, a fantasy travelogue that the rest of us can only daydream about. It’s eye-opening for ex-pats to see how very many of us there are out here, and how we find each other and come together everywhere. And it’s exceptionally engaging for the diaspora in that it meets us where we are, highlighting how much of our Pittsburgh identity we carry to wherever we land. And it also acknowledges the many ways that Steeler fans can be made instead of born – so many people grew to love what the Steelers have represented over the years, no matter where they are.

But the book is for all fans, in and out of Pittsburgh, because of the unbelievable fantasy-camp quality of Wex’s journey. For one thing, he gets to go to Hawaii – the ultimate dead-of-winter daydream for Pittsburghers. But more than that, he meets the families and friends of The Troy, The Harrison, The Ben, The Hamp, The Hines, and many more of our current icons. His interviews turn those larger-than-life personalities into people like us, with high school buddies and childhood mischief and triumphs and tragedies and heartache.

Some of the boys had golden childhoods full of love and fun and some had more pain and struggle than any child deserves. Either way, the book opens a window into the real lives of the men we so enthusiastically cheer on, and begins to make  some sense of the personalities that we see peeking through on the field. And at least for me, it makes it harder to judge them when they act stupid or do wrong. I think it’s pretty healthy to be reminded that under every persona, there’s a person, just trying to do the best he can with the tools he’s been given.

All in all, it’s a dream trip with a good message that the whole Steeler Nation can appreciate. Plus, Hawaii!

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Charming Pittsburgh-oriented media #8: Viva la revolution!

The whole point of CPOM is to evoke a sense of place. That’s why pictures and stories of Pittsburgh are so vital for expatriates, because of their ability to transport us back to familiar places and emotions. And that’s why Post-Gazette photographer Steve Mellon’s Pittsburgh Revolution Series is among the very best at doing that. Today it’s the icy Allegheny:

Take a little time to peruse previous revolutions – he’s done Light-up Night, the Super Bowl victory parade, my beloved Forbes Field wall, Wholey’s, and Heinz Field. Plus some weirder places, like the medical examiners autopsy room, Rick Sebak’s office, and the unfinished new Children’s Hospital in Lawrenceville. There’s almost a year’s worth of archived panoramas. I think they’re all just for me, but you can enjoy them too.

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To Pittsburgh, from the Prom Queen

I was hoping to like the article in this month’s Pittsburgh Magazine entitled “A Love Letter to Pittsburgh,” by New York author Ellen T. White. After all, that’s what this whole blog is, right? A love letter? Nothing more affirming than reading something you’re guaranteed to agree with – makes you feel smart.

Not so much this time.

No better way to clue in Pittsburghers that you don’t understand them than to talk about how your first exposure to their city was a wedding at a “posh country club” where the bride was “Pittsburgh aristocracy,” the groom had “staggering good looks,” and the bridesmaids appeared “pulled from the pages of Vogue.” That’s how Ms. White’s “romance with Pittsburgh” began.

Mm hmm.

She goes on to describe meeting, marrying, then divorcing a designer from Pittsburgh, all the while quaintly infatuated with Pittsburgh and what she thought it represented – simplicity, authenticity, kindness. Which it does, but not to someone whose heart isn’t really in it:

Like every longtime New Yorker, I feared losing my “edge” but was determined to keep a firm grip on it. Working from Pittsburgh, I continued to take jobs in New York, where I had established a niche writing about luxury hotels and turning out funding proposals for not-for-profits with the efficiency of an assembly line.

She also transparently loved Pittsburgh not for what she found in it, but what it gave to her:

As luck would have it, the marketing chief for New York’s Museum of Modern Art was a transplant from the Carnegie Museum of Art. She hired me to write ad copy for the Museum of Modern Art and proposed me for managing editor of The New York Public Library – a recommendation that gave me the winning edge over a field of 350 aspirants. Curiously, national magazines were no longer tossing out my writing samples. Several gave me assignments for the first time.

In legend, of course, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. Yet I seemed to be experiencing a professional phenomenon of another kind. Having started in New York, it was my Pittsburgh work and contacts that were giving me a leg up in New York.

Yes, she does wax poetic about a few landmarks – she mentions Forbes Avenue and the Cathedral of Learning. She name-drops Michael Chabon and Sally Wiggin. But it never rises out of the mire of condescension. She romanticizes Pittsburgh, but ultimately it was a forgone conclusion that Ms. White would choose living in NYC and writing books titled Simply Irresistible: Unleash Your Inner Siren and Mesmerize Men With Help From the Most Famous and Infamous Women in History over living in the ‘Burgh (as she affectionately refers to it).

But there’s no going back now on that decision made a decade ago. In truth, I am a committed New Yorker and happy to be.

So her longing for what she thought Pittsburgh could be sounds so much like the prom queen who remembers that special summer she spent “slumming it” with the lifeguard from the YMCA. She congratulates herself for how she broadened her horizons, how she’s in touch with what it means to be an “ordinary person.” But in the end, she’s just a tourist in a crown and sash.

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Who IS this guy??

So, obviously, I haven’t been in on this Pittsburgh new media thing long enough, because R2P only just brought to my attention the rantings of disgruntled boomerang journalist Bill Steigerwald. This guy has about three things to say about his-hometown-and-mine, all nasty, and repeated again and again with only minimal change in syntax such that anything he writes about Pittsburgh sounds like it comes from the new magnetic poetry® set “local hatefulness.”* Yesterday he got out the “deindustrialized economy,” “religion of Steelerism,” and “inevitable decline into depression” phrase magnets and wrote a piece for newgeography.com accusing us of rearranging Terrible Towels on the deck of the Titanic:

Sunday’s Super Bowl game between the mighty Steelers and the upstart Arizona Cardinals – teams representing regions going in exactly opposite socioeconomic directions since 1950 – has eclipsed all non-sports news coming from Pittsburgh.

Pro football, which Pittsburgh continues to excel at despite 60 years of economic decline, brutal population loss and criminally inept public sector mismanagement, is a seasonal religion every fall no matter how well the Steelers do. But when the Steelers make it to the Super Bowl, as they did this year for an NFL record seventh time, the region and its 2.3 million people are paralyzed by a religious fervor that can be culturally embarrassing.

This isn’t the meanest thing he’s ever said about the ‘Burgh though. Not by a long shot. 

He got a lot of mileage on his assertion that Pittsburgh deserved a sympathy card instead of a birthday card for its 250th anniversary. He must have thought it was a clever little joke, since he used it twice – once for NewGeography and again for his day job at the Trib. Yes, they’re two different articles, but yes, they do both use the same little magnetic sound bites. He closes out the Trib column thusly:

But let’s face it: As our misgoverned core city turns 250, we Pittsburghers don’t have a whole lot to celebrate or look forward to — except maybe three or four Stanley Cups [sic] wins for the Penguins and the grand opening of the Port Authority’s half-billion-dollar North Shore Connector to Nowhere.

So instead of a 250th birthday card, on Tuesday someone probably should send Pittsburgh a sympathy card: “Sorry to hear of your long, slow socioeconomic death. Here’s hoping your next century is better.”

Now look here. I generally frown on the use of the perpetual ultimatum leveled at those who gripe about where they live – “Well why don’t you just leave [insert geographic location here] if you hate it so much?” – most recently worn out by suggesting anti-patriotism in anyone who questioned wiretaps or torture (“Why don’t you just go to Iran since you hate America?”). But seriously. He moved back to Pittsburgh. From Hollywood. I can’t think of anything worth saying except that tired old ultimatum (which, it appears, is the natural opposite of, “If you love Pittsburgh so much, why don’t you marry it?”, a phrase which I have often felt people in Austin stopped just short of saying to me for fear of looking immature). 

Of course, Mr. Steigerwald is entitled to his superior little opinion and his series of cue cards that represent it. And he’s entitled to spin things that aren’t really negative as egregious downsides – an economy that’s these days based in health care, higher education, and the public sector; or slow steady real estate growth instead of a bubble – like a school-yard bully who picks on whatever he sees first even if there’s nothing actually wrong with it.

But if he would just happen to like to pack up all that gloom and take it back to sunny Los Angeles, well, that would be pretty much fine with me.

 

*not real

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Don’t read this

Read this! (Woy is hosting surprise guest blogger PittGirl – aka Jane Pitt – this week) (Why are you still reading this?) (Though it’s hard to escape noticing that for someone who wanted to disappear from public view, PittGirl has had a lot of surprise reappearances…) (She should just come back permanently. Stop taunting us, PittGirl!) 

Or read this! (Cat is even more cutting with her advice-seekers than usual – fun!)

Or read this! (Weird but satisfactory “post-game analysis” of the Madden 09 simulated Super Bowl XLIII played last week by some computer)

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Charming Pittsburgh-oriented media #7: No game? No problem.

Want to see goofy black-and-white footage of the “Pirates” in their leather helmets? Or Jack Lambert in a sweater vest? Want to see Three Rivers Stadium, and Coach Cowher’s spittle raining down upon its turf? Want to see again why we cherish The Chief and The Cope, and why the Raiders held a monopoly on evil long before the Ravens materialized? Want to see everything ESPN ought to be showing all day today?

NFL Films has just what you need.

Crazy “golden triangle” uniforms? Check.

The Immaculate Reception? Check.

Franco’s Italian Army? Gerela’s Gorillas? Frenchy’s Foreign Legion? Check, check, check.

The Bus? Check. The Stautner? Check. The Swann? Check.

Yoi and double yoi? Check and double check.

Is it next week yet?

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Pittsburgh Playlist

Something about me: I am a very auditory person. I read out loud to myself. I remember what I’m told without taking notes. And I surround myself with as much music as possible, including my relatively constant internal soundtrack. The movie of my life is mostly boring, but that doesn’t stop me from scoring it like Dances With Wolves. Enjoy these songs that call Pittsburgh to my mind.

1.       Ask Me About Pittsburgh – The Asteroid No. 4.   Much of this song is a little too experimental for me, but the melodic middle is just right. Evolves from apathy to hope between its two references to the city in the title.

2.       Return to Hot Chicken – Yo La Tengo.  I can’t begin to explain why, but this short instrumental conjures a vivid sense of driving across the Fort Duquesne Bridge into downtown. It’s early in the morning and the sun is low enough in the sky that sunlight is slanting into the lower deck, and the water is sparkling. It is spring. Like I said, I don’t know why, but there it is.

3.       Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) – The Arcade Fire.  I had a Sirius satellite radio for awhile, and I heard a lot of interesting new music on it. I can tell you just where I was when I first heard this song: driving north on Evergreen Road in the North Hills (lost like I always am when I’m looking for something on the myriad incarnations of Evergreen). It made me think of my neighborhood.

4.       Pittsburgh – The Lemonheads.  I don’t know what inspired the title of this song, but for some reason it fits. Interestingly, the 2006 self-titled album on which this track appears includes a credit to John Kastner (of the Doughboys) as “Pittsburgh Guidance Counselor.” I have no idea why. Do you?

5.       Teach Your Children – Crosby Stills Nash and Young.  Dude, say whatever you want about Pittsburgh’s Olde Tyme values of family and community. There’s nothing shameful about them.

6.       Passenger – Iggy Pop.  Another song that has me driving around the ‘Burgh, sunroof open, the lights of downtown beaming from above. I must do too much driving – time to reduce that carbon footprint.

7.       Born in the 70’s – Ed Harcourt.  Sirius gave me this one too. I liked it, so when a coworker took me to Paul’s Compact Discs in Bloomfield to show me where he got all his cool indie stuff, I bought the album. Turns out this is the only song on it that I liked. Paul’s was still awesome though.

8.       In Step – Girl Talk.  Hard to pick a single Girl Talk track to include, but this one feels like a hair-raising helicopter tour of the heart of the city.

9.       Jesus, Etc. – Wilco.  This song is the heart of my playlist. It has such pathos. So hey, did you know that “passion” is from the Latin for “suffering?” Of course you did. The city of Pittsburgh has suffered so much over the years – fire, flood, economic and cultural upheaval that threatened to kill the city – and perhaps that’s why it inspires such passion. We feel the pain in the city’s bones. “Tall buildings shake, voices escape, singing sad, sad songs.” If you want to feel connected to your city by suffering with it, listen carefully.

10.    I Feel So Good – Richard Thompson.  Another very specific memory in this song. I was walking Walnut Street after a very long day, feeling a deep sense of satisfaction with my work and my life, and this song was playing on the street from Record Village. I went upstairs, asked what they were spinning, and bought it straightaway.

11.    Ball and Biscuit – The White Stripes.  Doesn’t it just make you feel young and hungry, prowling the South Side in the middle of the night? Yeah.

12.    Smalltown – Lou Reed.  Seems like a lot of the play the ‘Burgh gets in music is none too kind. “Ain’t no Dali coming from Pittsburgh.” That’s okay, not everyone can appreciate.

13.    I Feel Like Going Home – Muddy Waters.  Hats off gents. This is American music royalty. And he’s singing to all of you in the diaspora – don’t wait until you wake up and all you have is gone. Get on home.

14.    I’m Not Dead (I’m in Pittsburgh) – Frank Black.  Sounds like complaining, but it’s goodhearted. Co-written by Reid Paley, a Brooklynite who made punk music in Pittsburgh for some years, this one is a classic that will make you feel okay with wherever you are, home or away.

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Pittsburgh Media Superhero

There are two kinds of people: those who love Michael Chabon, and those who haven’t read him yet. He is not just the King of CPOM – though he is definitely that, his first two novels being The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys – he is this generation’s ambassador from Pittsburgh to the wider literary and cultural world. In his stories set in Pittsburgh (and most of his stories actually aren’t), the city plays a character role, with its personality very much intact. That is a difficult proposition for an author who wishes to make the setting of the story part of the story itself – at least without resorting to caricature, as in “Sex and the City” or LA Confidential.

Even when Chabon’s books aren’t set in the city of Pittsburgh, its influence runs like a river through his work. He wryly refers again and again to the “character” of Eli Drinkwater, the fictional late Pirates catcher who was tragically killed in a car wreck on Mt. Nebo Road. More than any direct reference, though, is the daring and unconventional personality of his work, in which I see the unmistakable stamp of a Pittsburgh worldview. Chabon is devoted to plot, eschewing the post-modern sensibility which holds that good literature is somehow opposed to a “good story.” He is playful with theme and genre – exploring the lifesaving power of baseball, and unafraid of annoying critics with detective stories, horror, and comics. He is funny, self-referential, and in a way, artless.

Perhaps any city would love to see those unique qualities as shaped by its influence, but I think this column Chabon wrote for the Post-Gazette last spring makes clear his connection to the city. He refers to Pittsburgh as his hometown (though he was born in D.C.), but that’s not what seals the deal. It’s the connecting lines he draws from Pittsburgh to everything else. Reading about Jackie Robinson brings Roberto Clemente to his mind; being in the City of Bridges leads him to the realization that we live in a “Nation of Bridges.” Pittsburgh is in this man’s heart; hear his love:

It’s in those bridges that the hope and the greatness of Pittsburgh lie. Though they were built to serve the needs of commerce and industry, other fundamental human needs — for communication, for connection, for free passage through the world — also drove their construction. As with courage, a beautifully engineered bridge such as Pittsburgh’s Smithfield Street Bridge can be defined as grace under pressure, reconciling distances and bearing heavy loads with elegance and steel. Pittsburghers live in their neighborhoods, but they rely on the bridges they have built to teach them how to live together in their city, through a transfer of shared humanity, a mutual reaching toward the opposite shore.

In a deeply personal way, I identify with Michael Chabon. He was not born in Pittsburgh, nor does he live there now, but its soul informs his life and work. Perhaps one day he’ll come home too.

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