That's Church

Since posting my thoughts on the G-20, I’ve made some decisions:

1. I’m going to accept it’s coming and hope for the best.

2. I’m going to hope my city is prepared for the worst.

That said, it doesn’t mean I’m going to turn a blind eye to things like this:

1.  Dozens of police cars have been vandalized by suspected anarchists in town for the G-20:

Pittsburgh Police sources say at least a dozen police cars and a number of private cars were vandalized. Sources also confirm police investigators have substantial information to believe the crime was committed by anarchists in town for the G-20 Summit.

Sources indicate nails and screws were forced into the tires on at least a dozen marked and unmarked police cars as well as a number of private cars.

Sources indicate it is believed a number of suspected anarchists came to police headquarters late Wednesday night and damaged as many cars as possible.

Police indicate the tires cannot be plugged and must be replaced because the cars have to operate at high speeds.

Damage estimates at this time are running in the thousands of dollars.

Sources indicate the suspected anarchists came to prove to police they can do damage whenever and wherever they want.

2.  Here’s a video posted on youtube.  And here’s the commentary by a local anarchist:

I’m reposting this video because I am from Pittsburgh and have lived here all my life.

This video is kind of hard to watch for me because I just can’t take or believe how deceiving the corporate media is. I’VE NEVER SEEN SUCH PROPAGANDA IN ALL MY LIFE!!!! JUST TOTAL CONTROL!! TOTAL SCUM GOVERNMENT!! I MEAN THE SOVIET UNION WAS NEVER THIS BAD!! JUST HUMILIATION!! DOMINATION!! JUST THE OPPOSITE OF FREEDOM!!  FAT STUPID EVIL COPS STUMBLING AROUND EVERYWHERE!! ARMED FELONS IN THE MILITARY!! JUST URINATING AND DEFECATING ALL OVER US!! JUST LAUGHING AND SMILING AND GIGGLING AS EVERYTHING GOES TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET!! WITH A PACK OF MEDIA LIARS AND CRIMINALS SUCKING THE CURRENCY DRY!! BLOWING EVERYTHING OUT!!!!

And here are some comments from other users:

• Nice, they spend people’s money to pay for cops to kick those people.  I say, give them something that it’s worth their money!
• No problem. It will be a beauty, the gov/cops will take full advantage of it’s power. It’s gonna be huge.
• Burn it all to the fuckin ground

3.  From here:

• so Pittsburgh has about 40 Starbucks… hmmmm get them all in one night
• Fireworks make a excellent incendiary device for dumpsters and just about anything else.  They probably won’t get very far pushing the demonstration out of city unless they want it to go up in flames.  Smoke Bombs are da shit!  4th of July is coming.  You best stock up
• Trust me. I live in Pittsburgh. The police force is known for their brutality. It won’t be fun, but we must do what needs to be done. They’ve also purchased A TON of tear gas for the occasion, and they are going to keep if wether or not the riot happens or not. It’s downright bullshit.
• the only good thing i think that can come of this is that it is smack dab in the middle of three bioregions so kids from the midwest, mid-eastern seaboard, and the northeast could descend upon the city. it is a fairly central location to devour with our decentralized diversity of tactics.
• don’t get me wrong, i’m all about gettin wild, but let’s do it somewhere that the cops and feds haven’t been monitoring and building fences for months. let’s stop letting them write the script.
• Exactly. Do you think they’re expecting us? Do you think they’re prepared for 10 Seattle Riots happening concurrently? God damn right. That said, they do sleep. I prefer a sleeping fascist in a onesie to one in riot gear. It’s all about picking your spot.
• Damage doesn’t have to be done just in Pittsburgh alone you guys. Anarchists living in different parts of the country can form their own affinity groups and carry out a quick and unannounced action. It’s been done before small scale. If the word is spread out long enough and is well organized it might not be so small. Think of it like this. Pittsburgh get’s hit really hard while little actions are popping up all over the U.S. I can already see the NEWS headlines “Corporate America Under Siege?”
• Knock it off… The pigs are not omnipotent or anything. How they stage for a summit is a military-like cluster fuck. Google up the Pittsburgh news sites; The pigs are fucking clueless. Last night they busted a drain cleaning busness for having some PVC pipe. The pigs said it could be a “sleeping dragon”. maybe that’s when their shit got fucked up. LOL.   Be fuckin’ careful but remember: All pigs are paper tigers…

From here:

Capitalism is not simply imposed by a few heads of state; it is a decentralized system perpetuated at every level of society. Accordingly, on the second day of the summit, actions will take place throughout Pittsburgh targeting institutions that perpetrate the daily oppression and devastation of the capitalist economy. The Pittsburgh G20 Resistance Project has prepared a menu of suitable locations for such actions. Pick a location, plan your action, and come to Pittsburgh!  The idea is that all the actions will conclude at 11:30 a.m. sharp, whether they last for four hours or four minutes up to that moment.

So you see why I’m a bit worried about our city and our police officers?

Take a look at that “menu” of locations for “actions.”

My God, they better not TOUCH Trader Joes. I will choke an anarchist bitch.

Yeah, the website to vote for our sick kids to win a game room is a giant hairy ball of suck right now.

This morning, after ten minutes I MAY have logged three votes.  Or I may not have.  Who the heck can tell?

We, that is Pittsburgh’s social media crowd, are putting our heads together to come up with a way to raise the $10,000 separate from the contest, because asking you to vote is no good if the site won’t actually let you, you know, VOTE.

I bet hanging chads have something to do with this. GOSH DARN CHADS!

Vote if you can, but also, stay tuned.

Quiet, as we listen to the secrets of the Boob Whisperer:

God bless P-G (pronounced pay-hay in Spanish) for giving me my morning laugh with this We Posted picture.

Next time I’m at an event and about to have my picture taken, I’m just going to shove my ear up against someone’s boobs. Watch out, Sally Wiggin.

Watch out.

1.  VOTE!  DANG IT! VOTE!

Also, BOO!

2. KISS FM has collected some of the most hilarious Kanye photoshops I’ve seen.  I particularly like the one where the shark eats Kanye.

3.  The post to comment to win Steelers/Chargers www.ineedtwo.com tickets is still active.  Have at it if you haven’t already.

4.  I’m really enjoying the opposing views being aired out in the G-20 post, many of which have given me food for thought.  I encourage you to read through the comments if you haven’t already and to put in two cents of your own. Speaking of the G-20, my good formerly virtual, now real live friend Norm thought that this event might also be interesting to those of you that wish to listen to local and international thought leaders discuss the G-20 and Pittsburgh as an example for economic recovery.  Tickets are $10 each if you’re not a student, or you can comment to this post that you’re interested in attending and I’ll select a comment # by 5:00 p.m. to receive two free tickets to the event. Woo!  Free stuff!

5.  I’m not saying the new August Wilson Center is phallic architecture, I’m saying lots of readers are emailing me to tell me they think the new August Wilson Center is phallic architecture.  And now all I see is a phallus.  THANKS, GUYS!

6.  The Aviary is closing during the G-20 summit.  Woo!  Showcasing Pittsburgh with a whole bunch of shuttered points of interest. Woo!

7.  Reader Viv informed me that if you go to the Head and Shoulders website, you can type in anything you want and watch Troysus Polamalu tackle it.

Look, Troy and by default God, hate pigeons too.  Here he is warming up.  Thinking about how nice it’s going to be to kill some pigeons and about how he’ll pray after he kills the pigeons that God will look favorably upon his sacrifice:

Here he is about to tackle the pigeons.  The pigeons begin screaming from their quivering cloacas:

Bam! See ya, you knowing bastards.

Aw. Warms my soul.

8. Some What The Effies!

• “Haunted Attraction seeking amputee actors to depict the most grotesque horror scenes the public has ever scene.”  That’s lovely. (h/t Zach)
• Also lovely where “lovely” means “depressing as hell.”
• “I wear my sunglasses all the time, I wear my sunglasses all the time, as you can, as you can seeeeeee.”
• Deuce Bigelow, Pittsburgh Gigolo.
• THE MONKEYS HAVE FOUND CRAIGSLIST!
• It’s okay, ladies. It’s a STEELERS collar. That’s just classy.

9.  Esquire named our governor Ed Rendell as one of 75 Best People in the World.

Who knew Esquire was ranking sandwich eaters now?

What? They’re not?! WTF? Let’s take a look, then.

WHY, pray tell, Esquire, is Ed Rendell the 40th best person in the whole big wide world?

Because he proves that not every macher need be a pig or a prick.

Right, because he’s both.

Ba-ba-BAH!

I wasn’t blogging when it was announced that Pittsburgh would be hosting the G-20 meeting, so you and I haven’t yet had a chance to talk about it.

When I first read the news, honestly, my initial reaction was, “Wow! That’s really cool! Woo!”

About a half a second after I finished saying, “Woo!” I had one of those fast-paced staccato image montages run through my head.  You know, like how on MTV where they don’t believe a viewer has the attention span to sit through any one image for more than 2.5 seconds, so they will instead fast-fire image after image after image to the beat of a drum all BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM and by the time the images are done flashing you have a little headache and you can’t be 100% sure you didn’t just download a secret government message to your brain and maybe a little bit of kung fu know-how, too.

So the images that are rushing through my brain 100 miles a second? These ones.

Maybe it’s un-American of me to not want the protesters in my city, but you know what? I don’t want the protesters converging on my city. I don’t want the pushing, the shoving, the anger that bubbles and bubbles until finally it boils over and suddenly there’s blood.  I don’t want the shouting and the fist-shaking and the mask-wearing and the sign-waving and the ridiculous demands to abolish money or the police or jails. I don’t want the tent cities popping up on my city’s river shores.

I don’t want anyone touching a single hair on my city in the name of anything other than beautification.

I don’t want 20 world leaders descending on Pittsburgh under the guise of “showcasing Pittsburgh’s economic recovery” when the real reason they’re here is because half a dozen other cities said HELL NO! and our starstruck Mayor and County Executive never got past the “Woo!” moment to take a look at the realities of what bringing the G-20 here means.

They didn’t consider the logistics of managing the security teams, the handlers, the caravans, the entourages of not just one, but TWENTY world leaders and the security teams, the handlers, the caravans, the entourages of their TWENTY high-maintenance spouses.

They didn’t consider the cost.

They didn’t consider the fact that they would likely have to shut the entire city down for two days, forcing some companies to close for two days, some companies to demand two days of mandatory vacation from all of their employees, and some companies to inform their workers they’ll need to walk about two miles from their cars to work for two days.

They didn’t consider you or me or our streets or our windows or our beautiful city.

They didn’t consider the litter.

They didn’t consider the damage we might see, the legal fees in lawsuit after lawsuit we might see, the mass chaos we will see, all in the name of proving to the world, once and for all that we’re not smoky, sooty, nasty Pittsburgh anymore.

I’m TIRED of hearing it. I am sick of hearing, “Hey! Come to Pittsburgh! We’re not dirty anymore!  We’re like really cool and trendy now! Woo!”  You know what? We’ve been named the most livable city in America.  The ninth best in the world.  Our city is regularly showcased on the national stage through sporting events, conferences, etc.  We rank high on just about any list you can come up with that rates various aspects of city awesomeness, and yet still, we have a self-esteem issue as a city. “Hi, I’m from Pittsburgh! I know what you’re thinking …”

Screw that!  I’m from Pittsburgh!  It is a world-class city with the best hospitals and colleges in the country, a booming technology center, a cultural district that will knock your socks off, hip restaurants, trendy clubs, beautiful living spaces, thriving neighborhoods and I don’t need the “generosity” of 20 world leaders gracing us with their presence long enough to hold two-days worth of useless meetings to confirm that for me.

It’s like the girl in high school who was pretty but shy and kept to herself because she never truly looked in the mirror at how wonderful she really was.  One day, she does look in the mirror, says hey, I’m pretty awesome, shows up at school with a new confidence and says, “Forget who I was.  This is me now.”

Pittsburgh, it’s time for us to stop looking at ourselves like this, as depicted by the local Tribune Review’s editorial columnist:

It’s time to look in the mirror and say, “Holy crap. I am AWESOME.” and to hold our heads high and say to the world, “I’m not going to keep reminding you of what I was. This is what I am now.”

If only Dan and Luke would have said that three months ago.

If only they would have gotten past the Woo! moment to say, “Mr. Obama, with all due respect, we’re fine, thanks.”

Call me un-American, call me anything you want, but I’ll tell you what I really am.  I’m a Pittsburgher and my God, I’m PROUD of it.

And don’t a one of you protesters lay a finger on it.