Winter Pleasures

I tore down the closet in my room a few days ago. Unlike the preparations I didn't make for the wall I tore apart last year about this time, I actually covered my bed and furniture with blankets to avoid soaking the plaster and coal dust into my property.

My private property.

And I thought I had documented that wall. I guess not.

This is where this ends. Bye. No Pictures. No proof.

updates

I come back sometimes. Sometimes it's with pictures of my house and my new plans. Other times it's to pretend I'm an anarchist and complain about how my friends receive negative attention from the state while I burn the world and ask everyone why they're not looking at me.
This time it's neither.

It's almost a wish list or a Coming Attractions reel before the film. Or we'll call it what it really is: A Self-Aggrandized To Do List. (Look at me!)

+Rescue enough appropriate Pine from a sign-making business to recover my second floor's fucked hardwood.
+Get busy on finishing the insulation in the drop-ceiling area between first and second floors.
+Make the hype for a Winter To-Do list much bigger than the actual list.

Post-G20 Wrapup

I guess if Luke Ravenstahl can wait until the next official work week to talk about G20, then I can wait until the end of my G20 vacation from Cashiering to give up my feelings about a city's self-defense against unwanted visitors.

I'd like to compare our response to the G20 in Pittsburgh to Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!, but I'm not really interested in such pop-adventure metaphors. Thursday's illegal meeting and march was akin to a Parade for Pedophiles, except if we had been pedophiles on parade, the media would have at least let the scared folks inside their homes know about our politics.

After I stayed up all night into Thursday morning, I was ready to crash by the end of the unpermitted march. So I had some more coffee and went back to Oakland, where I had the misfortune of running out of real energy before everyone decided to smash the state after 10:00.
My tattoo artist friend went to jail. She was doubled over coughing on CNN, running up Liberty Avenue with tear gas in her eyes. I later found out another friend and neighbor was arrested, but for not much more than failing to pay attention with riot cops a few feet away.

But now Pittsburgh's seekers of social justice (and property damage) have to apologize to the world for not putting on a big enough anti-capitalist/globalization/free-trade display to burn down our own town. I'm not certain that comparing Pittsburgh to other globalization-focus party host cities that have larger populations is fair. Pittsburgh, as far as I can tell, is fairly local in its allegiance. PrestoGeorge in the Strip took place of Starbucks, which was around for a minute but was deemed inappropriate in such an intimate, familiar setting. Pittsburgh has its chains, and I don't know what percentage of businesses in an average city of over 500k is local or independent, but it could be that we value the local and appreciated it before it became a bumper sticker.


This is where the assumptions jump out: While Pittsburgh is a good home for anarchists because of its cheap living and sometimes empty neighborhoods, greenscape and rich history in class struggle, it doesn't really breed anarchists like the hipper locales across the nation. I've never been anywhere else for an extended period of time, but we're small, we're aging/old, and we have a very large transient student population. We've started to attract new anarchists, but only because anarchists here are starting to advertise Pittsburgh for what it is: Cheaper than where you are now and not what it was 25 years ago.

Maybe other cities with higher cost of living and less winter allow for anarchists to do more romantic training exercises, like, oh, running successful bookstores that compete with real businesses. Or maybe they're forced into being more successful within a slightly more predatory market than the less ambitious, less pricey rustbelt in which we reside, work, and fuck shit up.

But since G20 was announced in May and every anarchist across the country with access to national news had time to save up or request paid time off or hop a train and hitchhike to visit our town and wade in the riot cop moat protecting this summit, I shouldn't even have to come up with excuses as to why Pittsburgh didn't destroy more buildings, businesses and cops.

We didn't have an Alexandros Grigoropoulos to spark stronger resistance and endless riots. I'm happy no one in Pittsburgh had to die to release our hatred for the state.
We aren't appealing to anarchists because we don't really have the best climate; I'm not sure if that's all we don't have going for us, but it has to be a step down from Oregon.
And as much as I can tell, most of our anarchists are pretty busy with other things, even if our infoshop can't legally call itself an infoshop because it would prevent us from donating to prisons.
So while the G20 inconvenienced us without allowing us to inconvenience it too much in return, we really just wanted to act like it wasn't here, even though the itchy pitching shoulder in all of us was covered in poison ivy this entire week.

I will apologize for Pittsburgh's inability to end capitalism before Halloween 2009, but only because I half-promised it to a fellow cashier at work. But I will not apologize for our efforts.
Where were you when cops were running my city? I thought this was about mutual aid?

Oh, you were on the internet talking shit and reading the news. (Which is exactly where I would have been if I didn't live here, minus the shit talking part--I can't make focused, logical points.)

Veggie Dogs for Watch Dogs

I stayed up all night with Landslide kids. We sat on the porch with walkie talkies, looking down at the intersection of Kirkpatrick, Beelen and Allequippa.
This is all I saw all night.

View Larger Map

Nothing happened. There was a scare here and there, but when during a police state the biggest scare of the night comes from a suspicious delivery of the Wall Street Journal at 5 a.m., then I think we're all right.
Actually, when I followed a friend up to the woods after dawn to let the chickens out of their house for the day, two strange cars pulled in. Over the walkie talkies, which make everything inaudible except laughter (which could be maniacal or good-natured, it's never clear), all I could make out was that it was of my friend's concern to return from the woods.
As we were making our way back down the hill, we found out it was a false alarm: two men had pulled over and were having an altercation; the one in the rear smashing the other's back window and driving away before anyone realized that the cars weren't there to raid the house or step on pepper plants.
I ate two-and-a-half veggie dogs with saurkraut and pickled jalapeno peppers from the farm, drank one heavy cup of coffee and pooped at least three times.
I'd like to think I helped keep the farm safe, but I realized as the sun was rising that I had no clue what to do if confronted with a cop and a warrant. This week's special legalities equal total disregard for visiting friends: To anyone with a badge, a visitor is an out-of-town protester with a gallon of fermented piss and a five-gallon bucket of flingable shit.
I forgot to mention the welcome and supportive presence of several ACLU Legal Observers, one of whom is a new Landslide lawyer who was working earlier in the evening at the convergence space in Greenfield.
One could assume that the ACLU would have no trouble dealing with police, but it's hard to remember that while trying to stay up and remain comfortable perched from above the scenic violence.
Helicopters flew overhead once every five minutes before midnight, search lights getting lost in the fog like measuring scoops in a jar of flour. Every time a light on Fifth Ave. turned green, the anticipation for a cop coming up the hill quickly grew to a head, and then deflated just as quickly. If someone was walking up toward the bus stop at Kirkpatrick and Fifth, then it was worth pulling out the binoculars to see what they were up to, even if it really was just a plan to wait for the bus.
Every transistor box with a plexiglass cover and rivets around the edge is a scene-monitoring, electronic cop. Every vehicle without obvious markings is an unmarked police vehicle.

The moon was hiding from our vantage point on the porch last night, but it really wasn't what we were looking for.

A full step behind the Joneses

Other than the hungry, happy people in Friendship Park yesterday, no more of my friends have received visits. I made it to Landslide with a friend last night. I walked up their cobblestone street, past the porch where so much activity is normally common; in the night there was nothing. Signs with my former roommate's handwriting hung from each door of the duplex, instructing ex-inhabitants and visitors to stay out and to call a listed number for legal help if the cops show up and start absolutely destroying shit.
Farther up the hill, the six remaining Landsliders were making coconut pawpaw ice cream and planning ways to secure their entrances to prevent the kicking-in of their doors. Half of them were set on sleeping on the porch just to avoid sleeping in bedrooms that, after having so many people come and go with flea-harboring pets, are nearly as uninhabitable as 5401 Harrison.
I left when we gave up churning the ice cream and left it for a night in the freezer, and I walked back up a hill I normally pedal: The Bus Lane, while normally a quick shortcut up to Oakland from the South Side and Uptown, is worth avoiding when laws are actually being enforced, especially on bikers, since we're all probably anarchists who have seven other, non-local anarchists living with us this week.
We all do.
It's obvious that nothing good will come from another police visit to a friend's house, but I'm hopping back and forth from one cop+citizen rendezvous point to another in an attempt to find the most action. Some houses have watch shifts all night, midnight to four and four to eight, avoiding sleep to keep an eye out for the longest outstretched arm (is it even at full extension yet?) the law has ever had in these parts. This excites me because I never sleep anyway. I'm sure a target community could really appreciate the bags under my eyes providing support for a night's worth of warning call, but I don't belong out there because I'm too safe.
I'm admitting right now that I am jealous. I see a few different types of people right now:
1. People who aren't quite sure what the G20 is or what they're doing here, but are willing to talk about and try to understand it.
1a. People who seem to understand what the G20 is and seemingly disagree with it, but still won't or can't do anything about it.
2. People who have no idea what the G20 is or what they're doing here, but are unwilling to admit that they don't understand it and yet still act like protesters are the real reason our city has become a week-long police state.
3. Friends who have undeservedly been harassed, woken in the middle of the night, forced to leave their city-tolerated but not-yet-purchased homes; who have had to disperse, leave town and regroup in smaller numbers.
4. Friends who have been working hard with their independent media, legal defense, medical assistance, food preparation, hospitality for out-of-towners, writing, organizing, concern.

I have found nowhere to fit into this multi-faceted pinwheel of roles.
I've experienced fear and outright disgust about the stories from my friends. At my job, where political discussion does not come up, I've spoken with civilians, both ignorant and understanding, about these events, making sure they know just how close I was to getting arrested or just how integral my part in the story actually is.
"Oh, I play soccer there every week. I just happened to be gourging myself on an O Pizza with fries and ketchup as toppings during soccer time." A convenient alibi.
"Oh, I used to live with them. I knew them before they were squatters." Similar to, 'I knew the band before they signed to Warner.'
"Oh, I was just walking out when the cops were showing up. (Missed out again.)" Pathetic. It's one thing to have the cops come to you based on who you are; it's another to happen to be with people who the cops want to visit because of who they are.

I don't know how to save myself from wanting to feel watched or important. The admission of my crimes that may not be truthful would feel like a cry for attention. I don't even know if my crimes were/are actually illegal. But I do not want to feel left out when everyone else's rights are being taken away.

Asking for help in this situation of self-created desperation is just another temper tantrum, but a more thoughtful example than putting a "Happy G20!" banner across my front door. I don't know what my friends would do if they knew I was jealous of how much they matter to law enforcement this week. I hope they would slap me and tell me to wait in my house until the end of the week: "We'll be over with cookies when it's all over," they would say.

Because if we really want to be truthful, sitting in my house and waiting for something to happen is all I ever do.

G20 and Inconvenience

The G20 invades communities around the world. It turns poor villages into monocultures, forcing villagers to work for whatever corporation has been appointed to guide the village/town/city toward Western-serving development.
This is all a very vague critique of what I understand happens when globalization and its representatives enter the realm of the undeveloped world. I've got two sentences about nothing specific, when the voices in these villages could tell you much better, if they only had blogs.
I'm watching my friends upload audio and pictures to local G20-related, indy media sites; and then I'm turning around and waiting for another one of our houses to be raided, or another group of us to get accosted for looking or acting the way we do in public. Which, if you're listening, Pittsburgh, flies just fine for the rest of eternity, because this is Pittsburgh. We're scummy by nature, because we don't have to sell out too much to survive here.
And yet, all this inconvenience is a just a concentrated dose of what globalization can do to a community. A village in the undeveloped world is slowly being drowned by a steady flow of watered down orange juice, while Pittsburgh is getting sticky beause of these gobs of frozen orange juice that cops, Ravenstahl and Obama's guests keep throwing at us.

Just like these communities we don't have a choice in the matter. If your city is a bastion of green, with specks of economic stability mixed in, then you may be the next host of a predatory summit. You don't have any voice in it. Writing this blog makes me feel special, like what I say actually has an audience, or is somewhat controversial and worthy of attention from all of Pittsburgh's visitors this week.

But I know that I'm safe: There is no threat that I pose to this status quo. The G20 will be gone next week, and none of these global representatives will have read my blog.

And when the G20 leaves, then the Pittsburghers who packed up and left because of inconvenience will return. Their displeasure with a massive dose of globalism in our town results in a one week vacation. I realize that the precautionary measures that will turn ten-minute commutes into hour-long sit sessions are an inconvenience. I understand this. But leaving town to avoid the strongest representation of our privileged world's raping of those that serve our whims is a great representation of denial.

The G20 is in town. But I was here first.
Even if I know none of my neighbors, This is my community. And even if I help anarchists destroy Pittsburgh and take us back thirty years, I know I'll still be here.

I'm not going anywhere.

Visiting Family

Old news, yes, but an update none the less. From the papers twenty days ago:
"What we know right now is we're both putting in money to get this event and make this event successful and safe."-Luke Ravenstahl, while trying to make a case for the city of Pittsburgh, and not Allegheny County, to receive retribution for its efforts in funding security and accommodations for our special visitors.
































Never mind that traditional outta-towners receive no such love. We have a tourist board for such visits, and while I'm opposed to people making a vacation spot out of my hometown, I like that I can mostly get away with not having to deal with the presence of most vacationers. The G20 has already fucked my week, in the form of excessive police force and arrests under the bridge in Bloomfield (where I would have been playing soccer on any other Sunday evening). It's morning and I still don't know if half of my friends are OK. Can you imagine guests being anymore imposing? (I have no sources but my own two eyes, so I apologize to the purists who may be reading. I didn't forget to link a news story.)

Never mind that Barack Obama invited some very high-maintenance dinner guests to the Phipps and the Warhol, without first asking me, the Mayor of Lawrenceville. Sure, neither of these G20 destination spots are in my neighborhood. Sure, I've never been to either of them myself. But Obama should know one thing: That tip on the table had better be adjusted for inflation. That's all I'm saying.

Oh, and Obama didn't ask me or any of my local friends if it would be OK to bring guests. With weapons.

I used to go to family reunions at my uncle's place in Lancaster, Pa. My family would always stay with my dad's brother on the more vacation-type excursions, but come Reunion Time, there was never enough room for all the visiting family in his house, so we would have to get a hotel. But our G20 guests are all staying in hotels, even though this is not a family reunion of any sort. Why aren't they just staying with local family? It's a global community, and the G20 is here to discuss its global economy. Surely these visitors have address books full of cousins and acquaintances across the globe: Are they ignoring their U.S. brethren?

"Oh, hey, Pittsburgh Charlie. Yeah, mom's doing fine. What? No! Coming to Pittsburgh? Where did you hear that?"

Does this mean that our visitors expected special treatment for their otherwise mundane vacation to a dying little city from the start?

I'd really like to go back in time and find some way to posess Luke Ravenstahl's body and react totally differently at the onset of G20 Fever (which would make amazing knuckle tattoos).





From an imaginary press release dated May 29, 2009, just after the announcement of the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh.
And Luke Ravenstahl said: On behalf of Pittsburgh and the entire Steeler Nation, I am thoroughly disturbed and embarrassed, saddened even, that Barack Obama has invited the world's economic leaders to our city. Just because he invited our Championship Football team to the White House does not mean that he can treat our town like a long-weekend vegan potluck with a Facebook event invitation that says, "Hey, if you're bringing guests, bring extra weaponry and body armor with which to protect them. Shit, I meant food--bring an extra dish!"
Most economic summits require massive amounts of spending, and loss of spending at local businesses, that is not even included in the city, county, state or national budget provided for such events. Our flailing city is already in debt, and spending more money to protect and chauffeur a small group of self-important vacationers in town on History's Longest Recorded Spending Spree (full of refinancing, speculation, enhanced deregulation, sub-prime mortgages, predatory lending, collapse, bailout and beyond) would just not be a responsible thing for a Hot, Young mayor to do.
And I hear these motherfuckers aren't even interested in donating money to save our underfunded libraries.
So, these weekend guests aren't willing to make frivolous (or not so frivolous) vacation purchases to help our local economy. They're not willing to bring a casserole or baked good to dinner. And they're certainly not willing to apologize for being responsible for the Steel Collapse 30 years ago that left us with nothing but Row Houses and Alleys Full of Heroin Needles and flea excrement.
Some fancy white folks have taken it upon themselves to apologize for slavery.
If confused contemporaries can find it in their hearts to offer an apology for something that, as far as we know (wink, wink!), hasn't been a profitable, productive way for the ruling class to impose its wants and needs on lesser humans, then why can't the World's Richest, Most Powerful Folks apologize for making Pittsburgh Poor, Empty and Unemployed?
I'm sorry, G20, but you're going to have to get yourself a tour guide, a compass and a BikePgh City Street map just like the rest of our visitors. We're not protecting you, and you can get around town just like our only respectable citizens, and that's by bike.
Like always, I'm Luke Ravenstahl, and you can motherfucking quote me.

This is my leg

and my leg is usually in Upper Lawrenceville. That's how this post maintains relevancy about sacrilegous Lawrenceville. Maybe someday, when I have finished this house project, I'll change the name to Sacrilegious Lawrenceville. 

Someday...

My business partner drew the image, I picked it randomly from his sketch books, and Artnoose  poked me until I bled.

When we finished, I thanked Artnoose for the body art; she thanked me for allowing her to draw on me. It's a good trade.

Earth Day on Main Street

If only I had hired a photographer to follow me around and get images of me in the ditch with "Bony Toffee." (Not his real name.) The future ex-director of a community development group in Lawrenceville and I stomped around a sapling to compact the dirt, making sure these folks on Main Street could have their tree and eat it too. 

View Larger Map

So many times, the residents say, have folks on Lawrenceville's finer streets have these newly planted trees been hunted down by unruly, impatient Car Parkers, but these determined residents keep coming back. They keep encouraging young men and women with strong backs (and intact hymens) in the surrounding communities to learn the tricks of the tree tenders, just to keep up with all the Sap-thirsty Drivers out there, bent on making CO-2 and CO-2-making babies, who lust for the disheveled pornography of a tree's branches running parallel to the ground. Why, in the first twenty minutes alone, I witnessed three Driveby Fellings. 

Note: This photo is fake. No trees were harmed in the retelling of this tragic tale. The motives behind driver-caused tree injury, however, are quite real. 

Overheard in a conversation between two drivers when they had to pause and wait for a truck hauling saplings to a new treepark in Lawrenceville:

"I'm not just looking out for the sidewalk-using pedestrians out there--I'm looking out for myself. If trees start pushing these weaseling muskrats who use sidewalks out into the streets, then the trees won't be far behind."

Similar to traditional vampyre folklore, to defeat the beast, one must stamp it out at the root. Vampyres are killed much more swiftly when they are young, stake through the heart, as the chest cavity has yet to develop years of muscle, or as we've seen in cushy, tax-funded Vampyre Reservations in their native Transylvania, layers and layers of garlic-resistant adipose tissue due to ample supply of macro- and micro-nutrient-dense blood. This is what the driver fears: Healthy, mature trees living off the Urban Earth, like a barnacle thriving off the host. To the driver, the stationary tree is a colony of spreading ringworm, dropping its bacteria around it as it grows, while the driver's car is a more host-beneficial flea, coming and going as it pleases, avoiding the dig of the owner's claws and the pipebombs of pesky bicyclists. 

Time and time again, from tree hole to tree hole on Main Street, home owners sang the same sob story about being vandalized by self-professed oblivious drivers, drivers who backed right into these young trees  as if they were mere parked cars on a crowded street. Everyone expects this sort of push and shove, a give and take of bumpers, tail lights shaking their feathers while the next car's headlights change from speed-bump induced nods to horizontal wags of disapproval. The trees get taken out, and the Communist World Party chalks up another victory in the dead baby column.

But why would I show up and plant trees to make the nicest street in the neighborhood Even Nicer when everyone living there is sure our work is doomed for failure? Well, it's just so I can someday stand outside my home on the other side of the neighborhood, directing every move of the strong-backed, hymen-intact volunteers who have changed their work and sleep schedules to come out early on a Saturday Morning in April, rain or shine, so I can sit in my safe, wealth-appreciating home on the corner, worrying about some Fuckwad who's going to back onto the sidewalk and destroy my tree, which by the way, is leaning just a bit to the left. Could you reposition the rootball while I smile and wave for this photo-op from my $10,000 porch?

KThnxBye

Early Insulation Survives the Reagan Administration's Attack on Atheism, scoffs at Urban Redevelopment, saves The Hill District from Flightless Birds

During his stay in Pittsburgh as mayor from 1946-1959, David Lawrence did a lot to clean up this goddamn town. And he did this early environmental work while establishing ties across political chalk lines on the asphalt; he met many Pittsburgh billionaires (mostly Republican) halfway across the 3/4 inch line that signifies children's sidewalk chalk was used when these deliberators met to discuss citywide matters:

"What do we do about all of this smog?" asked Robber Baron Mellon.

"Let's throw everything in the rivers," answered Lawrence, walking that fine line without even a threat of smudge. "And while we're at it, outlaw coal-burning fireplaces in homes--In-home Natural Gas lines for everyone!"

"I'll sign that bill, but only if you bury a provision Banning Atheism deep inside."

In unison, the Pittsburgh locals responded, "Who the fuck would say such a thing? And why wasn't this quote attributed to anyone in the pages of history from which this blog post was born?"

Always the sneaky little weasel, Ronald Reagan authored that quote. Still an actor at the time, Mr. Reagan was merely reciting an oddly appropriately timed line for his latest film, the still prophetic, and eerily Nostradamic, "Mr. Reagan Goes to Washington." Pittsburgh's police force shot the Californian dead on the spot.

Reagan, sporting a period- and race-appropriate flat top, and the local Irish Catholic cops, were, of course, acting; the death was faked, and with his career cliffhanger leaning toward newness and reinvention, Reagan entered politics. Three and a half decades later, Reagan fulfilled his Former Life's Foretelling: He took the White House with the popular vote, living there for eight years, where in 1987, he, with all but The George Lucas Vote ("What about the Force as an alternative to Creationism?") outlawed Atheism in the United States. All of this I outlined in my children's story biography about Reagan, "Ronald Reagan: An All American (Atheist Abolisher)". 

Many folks beyond the Pittsburgh region don't realize that any of this even happened; after all, the Bible Belt grew notches and notches around this progressive beacon of intellectual bile, until it choked our godlessness out of us like a tube of tomato paste. Some of us puked it up, others swallowed hard and forgot; our bottled-up atheism emerged as cancers, racism, and a great need for pierogies. 

But Lawrence, whose preemptive battle against unproductive legislation, such as Reagan's attack on atheism, was well versed on dealing with such Potemkin Tour Guides. Reagan wanted to push all he saw as unsavory in the world under a facade of Christian Actor Utopia in an attempt to impress the Queen (who was later saved by the Sex Pistols' J. Rotten), while David Lawrence wanted to build a cleaner world through regulation, both in the factory and the home.

In the '50s, when Lawrence, as mayor of Pittsburgh, outlawed coal-burning stoves in townhomes, he was imagining what Peter Tosh would later repeat in Bob Marley's "Get up, Stand Up." 
"But if you know what life is worth, You will look for yours on Earth." Lawrence knew that heaven on earth wouldn't look like the shoulders under industry's black Coal Dust Dandruff. The outlawing of coal-burning stoves in Pittsburgh homes changed the air quality in the city immediately. It was like handing out ventilators to everyone in town, but cheaper and less fashionably obtrusive. As part of the city-wide changes, Lawrence partnered with Owens Corning, the building supply giant, to create pourus shingles that encouraged the mitosis of coal particles in the outside air through the roofing material, where the particles met NEW! OWENS CORNING BUILDING FIBERGLAS INSULATION, which trapped the particles for good. 

Kind of like an Ecto-Containment Unit for pollution, but without the intrusion of the EPA's Walter Peck. 
Lawrence used this environmental teaming to make some bigger moves in the literary and sports worlds: He married Rachel Carson, for whom he ghostwrote Silent Spring, the week after Pittsburgh's air was purified; and he watched from the Press Box as the Urban Redevelopment Authority OK'd the Pittsburgh Penguins destroying of the Hill District. (Reagan popped up again as the URA was writing Historic Racism through the Scapegoat of Development and tried ban the inclusion of Black Folks in Hockey, but lobbyists on both sides of the argument informed Reagan that "Black Folks just don't like Hockey." Reagan again tried to press the issue into law when he took Presidential Office in 1981, but decided to put more focus on upgrading Ketchup's status of 'condiment' to a fully recognized 'vegetable.')

But here I am now, in 2009, with some NEW! FIBERGLAS that has grown old. The trapped coal dust, whose capturing from the air has saved millions of Pittsburghers (so they could, in turn, leave for the Sun Belt or other economically thriving regions), is now harmless, the equivalent to depleted uranium in the hands of pacifists. But it's still so filthy! What do I do with bags of Used Coal-Dust Containment Fiberglas? And when I say bags, I mean an entire attic floor covered in bags and bags and bags. And bags.

Does anyone know of any Spent-Up Insulation Recycling programs? Construction Junction doesn't seem to have anything. But if I don't soon find a way to dispose of this, I may soon end up with a critical mass of Past Industry's Ghosts:

(Like this, only dressed like a Chimney Sweep and Covered in Soot.)

Please, Mr. Officer! I'm nearly 26! I have a home! I'm just restless with busy feet!

I dragged my friend Sara along with me to the 10th Ward Lawrenceville Block Watch Meeting tonight. Well, dragged isn't really the right term here--Bribed fits much more nicely, as I gave her two crisp $50 bills just before we walked over to the Church at 53 and Carnegie, right across the street from 5272 Carnegie, a house which I will live in someday, just so long as my occupation of it is right in the lord's eyes. I never thought God would be my neighbor, but Jesus gets a lot closer to some people. You know, like Molestation close. Anyway, here's a picture of 5272 Carnegie:

You can't see the Church in that Photo, but goddammit if you can't feel its presence.

Luke Ravenstahl was in attendance today, speaking for the first 20 minutes of the meeting before running off to another, less-important commitment. I mean, what's more important than speaking to a bunch of old, dying people who are already going to vote for you just because you're young and have sold out your generation? Luke Ravenstahl grew up in a Fine North Side Neighborhood, but he grew up a bit too quickly, if you ask me.
"My grandfather always said, 'Nothing good happens after midnight." I would have quoted Jacob Bannon or that guy who vocalizes for Pig Destroyer; but both would have been innapplicable and a bit too colorful for all the pasty whites and greys and cigarette-stained yellows in the church tonight. (Can you guess which group I'm a part of?)

And so the war on Youth continues, as the Pittsburgh Curfew Center will open its doors in the coming weeks on Dilthridge Street in Oakland. The young people of this dying city are given an ultimatum to stay inside when they're at their most creative (or restless), while their lonely, old family members are conveniently sleeping or dying in bed every evening at the start of curfew. And the next day, both old and young are at it again, with the young wandering around and being exuberant and boisterous, and the elderly wishing for Permanent Midnight.

But are the elderly really that concerned with young people being up late and committing crimes? I think it's a little more complicated than that, but I may just be too tired (or old) to be able to explain it.

But I'll try.

You see, when an old person can see an adolescent enjoying him or herself in the streets, it brings out a nostalgic sensation; when they see these kids on boards with wheels or bikes with flat tires, it makes them remember similar times growing up, except their memories are full of The Great Depression and Gin Rummy and Other Things Old People Like. Although I have no published documents to back me up, I feel with great confidence that the elderly have dropped their TVs and have forgotten about the New York Mets, and are now just staring out their windows in hopes of catching the Youth at Work in the street. Old people don't want to rob the youth of their Night Time Rights--They just don't want to miss out on anything. So they're staying up later to watch lil' Jimmie doing that kickflip off the Cast Iron Jesus in the churchyard. This leads to A.M. crankiness in the elderly, which prevents them from practicing the previous day's witnessed skate tricks while the youth are in school (or asleep) and therefore unable to critique the elders' attempts at re-co-opting the youthful vigor that they sold years before for cheap funeral plots and soggy, yet still challenging peanut brittle.

And that's a similar problem that I have, except that there's too much to do for me to be able to sleep soundly. I keep waking up with the fear that I didn't do all that I could have done the previous day, so I sit in my bed and rewrite classic punk songs until I can get back to sleep. Here's a song about Age, Luke Ravenstahl, and how it all shapes up to creating a better city, sung to the tune of "My Congressman" by the Bay Area band, Fifteen.

"My future magistrate says Luke can set curfew for kids that he hasn't made; He's just one dad."

That would be sending the wrong message.

"Did you ever notice:

On every playground,

in every vacant lot,

in every empty pool,

at every ward meeting--

the message is "Be young but don't do what memories of youth recall

It's not a law enforcement issue, being youthful's a disease."

When the Center is opened, a city-wide curfew for 'burghers 16 and under will be enforced from 11 a.m. to 6 a.m. An extra hour will be given during the weekend.

"Do you think that ever kept anyone from being young?"

There's a chimney under there...

I went manic and tore the plaster off the wall in the downtown side of our second floor living room two nights ago.
The plan here is to clean the chimney brick, poke in a nozzle to fill the columns full of expanding insulation (or not), and repoint the brick, leaving a 120 year old 'chimbley' exposed and ready for judgment.
My friend Dan recently bought two houses in my neighborhood. The seller used the word 'chimbley' to describe the brick and mortar column running up through the center of house 1 of 2. His words live on in Upper Lawrenceville, through us, as we make sure it's known we're better than everyone in 10th Ward Larryville. At the grocery store, on the sidewalk, in our own heads. But we're both unassuming and proud, one of us living cheaply and writing history, the other gentrifying another 20 square feet with every chiseled brick. ...
I'm going to use an old world mortar recipe for repointing the chimney.
Three Parts Fine Grade Sand
One part Lime
This recipe, according to this article on This Old House's site, is appropriate for the age of the brick and mortar in our house. The brick was softer back then, and since brick expands and contracts with changes in temperature, we need a mortar that will be soft enough to allow this sort of fluctuation in mass. Kind of like a belt for you business folk, elastic waistbands in sweatpants for the rest of yinz. Or something like that.
Modern mortar work is done with tougher bricks and, accordingly, tougher, quicker-drying Portland Cement. Using this on old brick can suffocate the brick, putting a stop to its normal push and pull, which makes the brick more brittle and increases the likelihood of cracking and an Early Brick Death Syndrome. Most bricks outlive even the most robust humans in any region. But I'll tell you who a brick wall won't outlive.

That's right. And don't tell me the pyramids are older than Jesus, because I've never seen the pyramids; I've felt Jesus's hand guiding me on the walkway above multiple lanes of traffic. I've felt his presence in keeping me safe when in the company of people who don't look like me. I even found some of his hair in my ancient mortar mix, which is probably even stronger as a fortifier than traditional horse hair. We'll see who's still standing in another 7,000 years: My shoddy wall, a goddamn horse or my lord and saviour.
Yeah, we'll see.

What lurks beyond these dusty floorboards

If you're updating an old house, you're already quite familiar with the amount of surprises you find beneath the floors, behind the walls, above the ceiling. While insulating the attic floor when we moved in, we found coal dust-infused whiskey bottles, some with a Doctor's prescription on the label, under the floorboards and in between the joists in the attic. These were from the Prohibition Era (as per the prescription dates), and were distilled and bottled at some now defunct distilleries in the Pittsburgh Region.
Some of our building's previous inhabitants were knocking back Dillinger's Pure Rye Whiskey, "Bottled in Bond at the Distillery: Ruff's Dale Pennsylvania."
The image depicts what looks like an old steel mill, which doesn't seem so far off considering Ruff's Dale is part of the Mon Valley, known for its former prosperity in the makings of all things steel and all emissions sooty. But, as I have learned from this informative page on Mon Valley Whiskeys, that was actually the distillery. The buildings on the bottle are lined up in factory fashion, all labeled with letters from A-F, which could have been an inspirational, dashed acroynym for Pittsburgh Punx, Anti-Flag, who don't believe in god (I think) and later opened up their own A-F records, as you see in the last link. Known for their love of Jesse Jones and fine rye whiskey, as well as their hometown pride, Anti-Flag could be just the re-animator to enstill life in a local distillery to open its doors and begin once again invading people's livers and their personal lives. 

Another interesting fact about the bottle is the pharmacy at which it was prescribed: The Larimer Pharmacy, of Pittsburgh's Larimer neighborhood. 

(I know, the picture's not that great. But neither is the research, so you should appreciate the consistency, which, as all responsible journalists will tell you, is the Keystone of good newspapering.) The only information I can find on the long-gone Larimer Pharmacy is this obituary, from a retired pharmacist whose talents are now being used to medicate Jesus and his Weightless Deadites, living on top of Cloud Nine far above our heads. According to the Allegheny County Property Assessment site, the building that once housed this pharmacy has been razed. Here's a picture of the vacant lot where the pharmacy once stood, and its one-time neighbor, an apartment building whose owner has kept all taxes up to date. Whether or not the building is still being used is another matter altogether, so I think I'll take a field trip to the neighborhood before I speculate any further. I've got a feeling we can find some answers about this Dead Pharmacist, whose ties with the Pittsburgh Mafia were well documented, as well as his many aliases and near immortality. 

The pharmacist's obituary mentions that he owned the Rx from 1964 to 1973, which does nothing to explain how he wrote this prescription, dated 11-25-26. And as a reputable journalist, I think I'm going to have to have a word or two with his patient, G. Bucco, to see if his thrice daily medication did the trick. Was this doctor peddling immortality? Well, his building didn't live to see the Reagan Administration outlaw atheism, so I doubt his patients are still around to see me administering my own brand of truth. 

And now, back to our regularly distressed floorboards. ...