That's Church

These two guys from the PG have a weekly video segment in which they discuss and give tips on …

a. Barn-building

b. Calf-birthing

c. Butter-churning

d. Oatmeal

e. Technology

YOU WILL NEVER GUESS IN A MILLION YEARS.

I have to tread carefully here because this article was written by a freelancer and I don’t want to be mean or to be snarky just for the sake of being snarky as I could with LaMont Jones, who I miss terribly.

There is a fashion article in the P-G today entitled “Pittsburgh Fashion:  Layering in Lawrenceville.”

Snippets of interest:

Shit.

I can’t even pick out snippets of interest because the whole damn thing is amazing.  You really have to go read it from start to finish to understand why I’m writing about it.  But, let me try again:

The two young writers subscribe to a philosophy of “trash can couture,” which can only be achieved by the most creative of souls.

Mr. McCloskey, 22, is proof that one man’s trash is another man’s fashion. His black shoes and gray pants were salvaged from the trash, and his slate-colored shirt last belonged to a man who passed away in a nursing home. It adds a polished look underneath his white sweatshirt with a CIA emblem. A gray jacket that Mr. McCloskey has had since junior high school brings his eclectic look together.

Now you see why I can’t ignore this article?  He is wearing two articles of clothing he personally found by rifling through the trash and a shirt from a dead old guy and it is all described as … POLISHED?! In the fashion pages of One of America’s Great Newspapers?! Would you like to see his polished look?

What she calls polished, eclectic, trash can couture,  I call “Raj from The Big Bang Theory.”

This writer, who previously described black jeans and a sleeveless black t-shirt as “savvy” “head-turning” “eye-candy,” almost succeeds in describing what sounds like a homeless guy, as a hipster with his finger of the pulse of trash can couture (I can’t believe I just typed those three words in that order.  What’s next? Trash can cuisine?)

What bothers me is how the P-G portrays fashion in Pittsburgh — as either $3,000 of the fuggest, sternest, harshest clothing ever to be sewn together, or some random crap I found in the trash. Why is it either Ivana Trump meets Mad Max of Thunderdome, or drunk guy rolling in his own piss?  Where’s the middle ground that says, “You guys, look at this adorable dress over at Mod Cloth that an average Burgher could actually afford and actually wear!  How cute and happening and not homeless at all is THAT?!”

Also, if you read the entire article in that beat poet format I wrote about yesterday? It totally works.

“Scarves. Pea coats. Leggings.  SCARVES. PEA COATS. Leggings. [snap] It’s cold. [bongo drum] Hand me down. Trash to treasure. Homeless man couture. [snap snap] Addams family. Values. Not a wrestler. Not a wrestler. CIA. Stop. [bongo drums] [drag of cigarette] Go. Rosy cheeks. Double-breasted. But not four boobs.  Quizzical. [snap] Stride on. Stride on. Layers peeled away. Smoke curls. My horizon has no beach. [snap] [single bongo beat] [rips head off of a pigeon].”

Where can I find an amateur open mic night, because I have found my calling.

I know I don’t write about the Penguins very much, and usually, unless something really noteworthy or meaningful or hilarious happens or is said (I make many goal), I tend not to really pick up writing about them until playoff hockey nears.

This is because there are SO MANY hockey games during the season, that writing about every one of them would turn this into the Pensblog and no one can ever hope to compete with the Pensblog when it comes to Pittsburgh hockey.  Those guys are the kings and I am their lowly wench.

I promise you that just because I am not writing regularly about the Pens, I am watching the hockey games.  In fact, I watched the recent replay of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, just so I could mock Marian Hossa some more.

I do however want to point out this column the P-G’s Ron Cook wrote today, calling out Evgeni Malkin for “sulking” about his recent slump:

It’s hard to say what is more troubling as the scuffling Penguins fight to get their season back on track — Evgeni Malkin’s lengthy goal-scoring slump or the lame way he appears to be dealing with it.

I’m thinking lame all the way.

OUCH!

Ron Cook goes on to detail how Malkin should buck up and plow through his slump rather than letting it affect his game any more than it already has.

Nothing wrong there.

But then, Ron Cook goes … [gulp] … THERE!

Malkin should be beyond that. He is no kid. He’s 23. This is his fourth NHL season. He is a scoring champion, a Stanley Cup champion and a Conn Smythe Trophy winner as playoffs MVP. He shouldn’t still need Gonchar to hold his hand through the tough times. It’s enough to make you wonder what will happen to him if the Penguins don’t do a new contract with Gonchar and allow him to leave as a free agent after the season.

Can you say Jaromir Jagr?

Oh. No. He di’int.

There’s more.

You know the sad ending to the Jagr era with the Penguins. An extraordinary player, he was so moody and sulked so much that he talked of “dying alive” late in his time here. He asked to be traded more than once before former general manager Craig Patrick finally granted his wish before the 2001-02 season.

I’m not ready to suggest that Malkin is going to be another Jagr…

Me English not so good, but, did you not just suggest that very thing by typing Jaromir Jagr’s name in the column, Ron?

Yes, Ron.  Yes, you did in fact just suggest it.

Let’s ask Webster, though, just to be sure:

sug·gest (sg-jst, s-jst)tr.v.

“To make evident indirectly; intimate or imply”

Yep, circle gets the square.

Sure, Geno’s slumping. Like a drunk against the jukebox.  (Aside:  I don’t get to go out to clubs or bars much anymore.  They DO still have jukeboxes, don’t they? GET OFF MY LAWN.)

Sure, he’s only scored three goals in twelve games.

Sure, he’s having a hard time dealing with it.

It happens. He’s only 23. And thus far, at least publicly, he’s saying all the right things about it.  He’s not making excuses and he admits he needs to figure out how to fix what’s wrong.

But this slump, and his issues in dealing with this slump do not erase his contributions to the team, and they do not erase the fact that he loves Pittsburgh, and they do not erase the fact that he has more hockey talent in his left dimple than most NHL players have in their entire bodies. And this slump or his behavior during it should in no way earn him a public comparison to Jaromir I’m dying alive Jagr.

Geno is a genius on hockey skates, and I can pretty much guaran-effin-tee it that when he pulls out of this slump, and he will, he’s going to do it with so much KABLOOEY! that Ron Cook is going to rue the day he ever put Evgeni Malkin and Jaromir Jagr’s names in the same paragraph.

Dear Evgeni, we still love you.  Please, let tonight be the night you figure your shit out so that the next time you see Ron Cook you can be all, “Бооуач, Бтсч!”

Sunday was supposed to be No-Pants Subway Ride day all across the world, and because you are a sane person, you have just said, “WTF?”

I’ll tell you WTF.

It is what it sounds like — take off your pants and ride the subway. The annual stunt, organized by Improv Everywhere, a troupe whose motto is “We Cause Scenes,” has been a success in New York City for years. It is the stuff of YouTube dreams.

This year, the Improv Everywhere Web site linked to No Pants Subway Rides advertised on Facebook and Craigslist in more than 40 cities, from Buenos Aires to Buffalo, N.Y.

Pittsburgh’s No Pants Subway Ride was a giant FAIL because only three girls showed up and chickened out and even the person who organized it didn’t take her pants off, because she claimed she couldn’t find the others.

Thoughts:

1.  I want to be all hip and happening and trendy and relevant and say this is so cool, and maybe write a poem about it that includes me standing on a smoky stage, snapping my fingers at various intervals all, “Pants. Pants. Subway. Window. No pants. Freedom. Peace. No pants. [snap].” but really, I’m thinking, “This is kinda dumb.” But you know I love me some flash mobs. And I love me some Chachi who invented “Pants Status” on twitter.

But this, I roll my eyes at.

2.  According to the Facebook page (read the second wall post for a good chuckle), the point of this stunt is “to make people laugh” and the way they planned to “make people laugh” was thus: get on the subway, remove your pants and place them in your bag or purse, do not talk to anyone else on the subway who is not wearing pants, act like taking off your pants on the subway is natural, keep a straight face, ride the subway sans pants, get off the subway.

HILARITY ENSUES!

Except not.

Hilarity however WOULD ensue if this improv group were to re-create the subway scene from Adventures in Babysitting.  My God, I’d LOVE that.

“Don’t f#*k with the Lords of Hell.”

“Don’t f#*k with the babysitter.”

WIN!

3.  If you calmly remove your pants on the subway, I am going to assume you are either crazy or a terrorist.  True story.  I mean, if you’re frantically ripping your pants off, I can safely assume you have a creepy crawling bug of some sort in your pants and by all means, get that son of a bitch out of there even if you have to strip to your skivvies, but if you’re calm about the public removal of your pants, that’s bad news.

And if fifty people on the subway remove their pants, I’m going to assume all the crazy people have some subway-accessible place they gotta be, or that there are about to be 50 pants bombs exploding shortly. Either way, I’m outta there even if I have to use my spidey senses to escape through a skylight.

4. This is a huge success in San Francisco and New York and other cities in which hundreds of people proudly ride the subway without pants, and because it was a huge fail here in Pittsburgh, one of the would-be participants said, “I’m very disappointed, Pittsburgh.”

But I’m all, “Well done, Pittsburgh.” I’d rather be known for the Point Park kind of flash mob than this one:

Sweet Jesus, some of those people should NEVER take their pants off in public, I don’t care if there’s a tarantula in their pants slathering barbecue sauce on their inner thigh.  Keep your pants on, tough it out and hop off the subway stop closest to an ER.

5.  More:

In her e-mail message, Ms. Lucas said she was re-organizing the event.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again, right?” she wrote.

There are only a couple of ways I can see this succeeding in Pittsburgh and they both involve Tyler Grisham and iJustine (a person who loves cheeseburgers as much as she does should not be permitted to have a body that banging).

[insert stripper music here]

Pants. [snap].

An email I received yesterday made me feel all tingly and warm and happy and I wanted to share it with you because it’s colder than the tits of ten thousand witches out there and this will give you a burst of warm energy.

I know you often write about the kindness of ‘burghers, and I had something happen to me today that I thought fit the bill. I thought I’d share so maybe the universe will thank him somehow.

First, I’m a displaced ‘burgher living in Washington, DC. I was in northern Virginia for the weekend for a wedding. Now, my car has been giving me some problems, though it did get me from Pittsburgh to DC last weekend. I was leaving this morning and the car was miserable–check engine lights, lots of angry engine noises and zero ability to accelerate. I pull over and throw a
frustrated, upset fit because nothing gets me irrationally upset like car trouble. I call to get a tow truck to get myself back to DC and (thank goodness for roadside assistance) one can come in half hour.

The truck comes in 15 minutes. and a sweet kid hops out, asks me if I’m okay and what’s wrong with the car, and tells me to get in the cab so I don’t get cold. He hooks everything up and we get ready to go, and I prepare myself for a half hour of small talk. A couple minutes in I say, “Yeah, all I really wanted to do today is go home and watch some football.”

He says, “Yeah, I hope the Patriots lose. I hate the Patriots.”

Me: “Me, too. They’re awful!”

Him: “Well, I’m from Pittsburgh so…”

Me: “You’re from Pittsburgh?! I’m from Pittsburgh!”

We go on to talk about where we’re from, what brought him to the area, and about those Steelers. We get to my mechanic and I’m getting ready to pay him for what my car insurance didn’t cover and he says, “Oh, no, it’s just another form for me to fill out–don’t worry about it.”

In the middle of a not-so-fun situation, it was so nice to have something in common, and his kindness just put it over the top.

Thanks for your blog, your wonderful writing, and for helping to bring all those far from home closer together.

Caitlan

GROUP HUG, YOU GUYS!