Peak: Now that's what I call Livable

(Photo: AP)

I moved to Pittsburgh in August 1997. In the 12 years since, I have witnessed three championships. That's 1 every 4 years.

Most Livable, indeed.

Peak: The hits keep on coming

Yesterday I celebrated the fact that the EPA is going after the electronics recycling operation that worked with local Humane Society’s. Now EarthECycle is getting it from below, too.

Some of the electronics collected through a free recycling campaign on behalf of several charitable organizations earlier this year were dumped on the property of a former auto repair shop in Homewood, according to workers for an Oklahoma recycling company.

The workers, Raymar Dawson and Jason Ivey, who were part of a crew of about 22 laborers that handled the electronics collected by Tulsa-based EarthEcycle LLC, say they dumped some of the electronics in the yard of an old car garage at 408 Finance St. (Post-Gazette 6/12/2009)

For those who came in late, you can read this blog’s initial post on the topic from last Wednesday and all the Post-Gazette articles linked within, but we’ll do a quick summary anyway:

- Boy meets charity

- Boy tells charity he can produce $10,000 for every 100,000 pounds of old electronics collected

- Boy says he’s going to recycle the electronics

- Boy turns out to be selling the electronics overseas where they are dumped illegally

- Environmental watchdog group blows whistle on boy

- EPA gets involved with a list of administrative charges against boy and demands a working plan to properly dispose of said electronics within a specific time period

Okay; all caught up.

So yesterday I was pleased that Jeff Nixon and EarthECycle were getting some heat from above, and today Post-Gazette reporter Karamagi Rujumba found a couple guys who worked at Nixon’s Homewood stop-over. The electronics were collected in the North Side and then moved to either an old garage in Homewood or an empty Levin Furniture showroom in Monroeville. From there, the electronics were sorted and loaded onto shipping containers that found their way to Newark and eventually en route to Hong Kong and South Africa.

Today’s story features some whistle-blowers from the Homewood site.

The electronics they dumped -- mostly broken computer monitors and televisions -- they said, are still piled up with other junk in the yard, which was initially used as a staging area by EarthEcycle.

"We would take the busted monitors and throw them out in the backyard," said Mr. Dawson, 27, who together with Mr. Ivey, 25,worked for EarthEcycle at locations in Homewood and Monroeville from early March to mid-May. (P-G 6/12/2009)

And then we get a real headshot on just how illicit Nixon and EarthECycle were being.

Both Mr. Dawson and Mr. Ivey, who said their job at EarthEcycle was to load the electronics on 53-foot containers, said that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection inspectors didn't know about the electronics that were dumped in the back of the Homewood facility.

"They made us hide the broken monitors when the DEP came around," said Mr. Ivey. (P-G 6/12/2009)

As we’ve discussed at length before, the fatal flaw in the whole scam was that Nixon promised the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society, the Washington Area Humane Society, and the Humane Society of Westmoreland County he could recycle the electronics and somehow make a profit off the deal, which he would then use to make the charitable donations.

But as has been pointed out several times, it costs money to properly recycle electronics, so the whole plan is screwed and shady to begin with, and if today’s whistle-blowers are to be believed, a simple trip to Homewood probably would have been evidence enough that the deal was a sham.

When Mr. Nixon partnered with the charitable organizations, which collected thousands of pounds of electronics for his operation, he promised to generate money for the charities by reselling the old electronics that were still usable.

What could not be salvaged, Mr. Nixon said, would be broken down and reprocessed by local companies and other smelters across the country.

But both Mr. Dawson, who lives in the North Hills, and Mr. Ivey, of Chartiers, said that what they did for EarthEcycle was not what Mr. Nixon promised the charities he would do with the electronics, much less recycle them.

"There was no testing [to check whether electronics were usable] going on, we didn't even have electricity in Homewood," Mr. Ivey said. Each container was packed with about 1,200 computer and TV monitors and CPUs, without packaging or wrapping the electronics, he added. (P-G 6/12/2009)

Like I said, I’m glad this story isn’t going away, and eventually we’re going to need to hear more from someone at the Humane Society. They have to answer for why they were so clueless about this. I suppose the promise of big money can cloud one’s vision, but this isn’t a kid filling up his Radio Flyer with old Coke bottles and getting a nickel for the lot.

These are electronics, which are dangerous and harmful if improperly disposed of. I realize that the Humane Society was lied to, but by putting their name on the set-up, they lent their credibility to it. I donated old printers because the Humane Society was involved, and I believe they owe some sort of explanation.

Peak: The government gets involved

So, I’m glad this story hasn’t gone away and I’m even more glad that some higher authorities are getting involved.

The Oklahoma company that worked with a number of area charitable organizations in a free electronics recycling program earlier this year violated at least seven hazardous waste management regulations of the Environmental Protection Agency, officials said.

The federal regulatory agency on Friday issued a complaint and compliance order against the Tulsa-based EarthEcycle LLC, which is owned and operated by Jeff Nixon, 44, a former Allegheny County employee. (Post-Gazette, 6/11/2009)

You might recall that this matter was discussed at length on this blog last Wednesday, but to refresh, let’s run through some details.

1. The Western Pennsylvania Humane Society set up a charity fund drive with EarthECycle whereby the Humane Society would collect electronics - TV’s, computer monitors, printers, cell phones, and the like - and EarthECycle would facilitate the recycling of everything collected.

2. For every 100,000 pounds collected, EarthECycle would donate $10,000 to the Humane Society. More than 1,000,000 pounds were collected, thus putting the Humane Society’s bounty above $100,000.

3. But according to a report from the Basel Action Network, an environment watchdog group, the collected items were not recycled; rather, they were shipped to various points in Hong Kong and South Africa where they were to be stripped and disposed of in an unsound manner that in no way resembles recycling.

4. As of last Wednesday, the Humane Society had not been paid its expected donations from EarthECycle. A single check for $10,000 had been issued to the Humane Society, but it came with an indefinite hold, most likely due to the looming legal battle EarthECycle and operator Jeff Nixon knew would be coming.

That’s the nuts and bolts of it. In my last post on the subject, I was particularly pointed in putting blame on the Humane Society for this mess, and I still feel like they bear the brunt of the responsibility. Without further re-hashing everything I posted last week, I’ll just sum it up by saying that safely and properly recycling electronics costs money. If you want to recycle your TV or old computer monitor, you have to pay someone to take it, and that company will most likely turn around and pay someone else to do the actual recycling. Either way, someone is getting paid.

Which is why the Humane Society-EarthECycle deal made no sense. The only way - as far as I’ve seen - to produce the kind of money EarthECycle promised to the Humane Society was to sell the electronics to overseas companies who would strip the items of any valuable materials and then dispose of the remains. Even just a little research would have likely led the Humane Society to sense that something was rotten in the state of Demark, but from all appearances, the lure of the cash was too strong.

(For full disclosure: I donated a couple old printers and some other broken electronics to the Humane Society’s collection, so I bear some personal responsibility as well for not being more diligent. My mistake was trusting the Humane Society.)

Okay then; I think we’re up to speed. The latest news to come on this story is that the EPA is involved.

The administrative charges against EarthEcycle include: failure to make a hazardous waste determination; failure to prepare a hazardous waste manifest; unauthorized export of hazardous waste; failure to provide notice to the regional [EPA] administrator of an intent to export cathode ray tubes for reuse; failure to package the electronics; failure to label; and failure to mark them.

"EPA takes proper and safe management of electronic waste seriously, which is why we have opened an investigation of EarthEcycle for violations of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act," said a statement issued through agency spokesman Dave Ryan yesterday. (P-G, 6/11/2009)

So it’s all administrative, and I’m of the opinion that any way you can stop a company like EarthECycle is good. It would be nice if they could actually go after this company for the exporting/improper disposal of those goods, but unfortunately the United States has not ratified the current international accord regarding hazardous waste, so for now we’ll have to go after the paperwork.

That being said, it does look like the EPA plans to make life very difficult for Jeff Nixon and EarthECycle until the company properly handles the collected items.

Now the EPA has ordered Mr. Nixon to "take possession of all of the containers that are returned to the United States and remove them from the Port of Newark," within 30 days. He also is supposed to transfer the containers to a secure warehouse for temporary storage under his control.

Within 45 days, Mr. Nixon must submit a plan for EPA approval detailing how he will manage each item in each container in accordance with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
The order further states that Mr. Nixon "shall not remove any items from the storage facility without EPA approval" and he "shall remove all items from storage within 20 days of EPA's approval" of his plan.

If Mr. Nixon fails to comply with the requirements of the order within the time specified, the "EPA may seek the imposition of penalties of up to $37,500 for each day of continued noncompliance, in addition to any other penalties that maybe assessed for past or ongoing violations." (P-G, 6/11/2009)

Hopefully the EPA will be strict about getting those electronics into a proper recycling program.

But the one thread still hanging is the Humane Society. No Humane Society representatives are quoted in today’s article about the EPA action, and I suppose that makes sense. The last we heard from the Humane Society was last Wednesday’s article in the P-G under the headline Humane groups think they’ve been duped.

"I haven't been able to get a hold of Mr. Nixon since our [recycling program ended]," said Alice Wancowicz, volunteer coordinator for the Washington animal shelter.

Kathy Burkley, executive director of the Humane Society of Westmoreland County, said she also received a similar check from Mr. Nixon two weeks ago, "after prodding him for a while." (P-G, 6/3/2009>

The Washington Area Humane Society and the Humane Society of Westmoreland County were also caught up in EarthECycle’s plan/web/scam/scheme, and while that article doesn’t actually quote anyone from the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society, I think we can assume that those people probably have the same reactions as the other two Humane Society’s.

But both Ms. Burkley and Ms. Wancowicz said they are quickly losing hope in recovering their proceeds.

"We probably will have to sue him if he doesn't make his payment to us," said Ms. Burkley, adding that she has already given a copy of the check she received from EarthEcycle to Greensburg police. (P-G, 6/3/2009>

Yeah, I’m going to have to go against the grain on that one. I know Nixon promised this money to the Humane Society’s, but in light of everything that has come out - and with the EPA now involved, we can pretty safely say that the scam was what it appeared to be - shouldn’t the Humane Society’s turn down that money? Even if Nixon recycles the collected items, which will come at severe cost to him, should the Humane Society’s still feel entitled to that money? They facilitated this situation by not doing the proper research, and even if they are patsies in the whole thing, I’m not sure that they deserve to reap any rewards from it.

I would go so far as to say that, if the environmental watchdog group released its report but it had no impact and Nixon’s scheme went as planned, there would be a certain responsibility on the part of the Humane Society’s to not accept the money. At this point, they probably won’t get any money because Nixon’s not going to have any to give - I would assume - but they should realize that a mea culpa is in order, along with a condemnation of Jeff Nixon and EarthECycle, a public apology to those who donated items, and a stated guarantee that no money will be accepted from this program.

And you know, there might be another angle on this thing. Allegheny County was involved in the program to a certain degree - although they washed their hands of it from the first cry of foul - but I wonder just how much involvement the County had. There might need to be a second mea culpa issued. Perhaps we’ll look a little more into that in the future.

Peak: Renewal in various forms

I guess the Post-Gazette headline writer and I have a different take on “vibrancy.”

East Liberty becomes a vibrant community

I just don’t know about that.

East Liberty has gone from being a neighborhood in need of someone to invest private money to being a beehive. Sixteen developers are at work there currently. Two new hotels are coming, the first hotels in decades. The Eastside complex that includes Whole Foods is expanding. Hundreds of new homes are being built, and a green-infrastructure plan will bring geothermal heating and cooling to about 800 of them. Storm water sequestration plans are in the works, as is a European-style town square.(P-G)

That certainly sounds like a beehive, and as someone who has lived near East Liberty for the past six or seven years, I’ve been pretty close to a lot of those recent revitalizations and have watched them with great interest. Because whether I was driving to East Liberty - for the McDonald’s, naturally - or through East Liberty - to reach points east - I was always intrigued by this neighborhood with its gateway high-rises and main drag full of wig shops and clothing outfitters and peculiar traffic pattern.

In fact, I once fancied myself a very wise civic observer when I stated to anyone who would listen that Penn Circle was like a noose, suffocating East Liberty until it had lost all life.

Yeah, I was pretty proud of that one.

Largely that image came to me after purchasing a copy of Pittsburgh Then and Now, a fascinating photographic study of the changes in this city over the past 100-plus years. The premise is pretty simple but probably time-consuming to produce:

Take a photo from a long time ago - could be the 1970’s, 1960’s, 1950’s, 1940’s, or before - and then take a current-day photo of the same location from the same angle. Then juxtapose and voila; you have a pretty entertaining and enlightening photographic history of the city, or at least a document of the changes in the city.

There is all kinds of interesting stuff in the book, but the section on East Liberty may have had the biggest impact on me. On one page, a photo from June of 1937 showing shops lining the street and the Pgh. Curb Market (for “fancy fruits and vegetables”) on the corner; in the same location in August 1987, a giant high-rise built over the street.

Or another photo from May 1936, when a street in a business district seems to stretch as far as the eye can see; in its counterpart from August 1987, another high-rise - the one that was recently imploded - climbs out of the photo’s frame.

It continues. From February 1935 we have a photo of a healthy strip, with a Hay’s market/pharmacy and a Cameraphone Theater (showing movies for 25 cents at night); in that same location in August of 1987 stands the big bus stop in the east end of Penn Circle.

And perhaps the most heart-breaking photograph from the East Liberty collection is a shot from the sidewalk on Penn Avenue near that bus stop in the east end of the Circle. This photo isn’t notable so much for the architectural differences between “then” and “now” - although those differences do exist - rather, the photos from 1935 and 1987 are contrasted most for what’s happening in them.

In 1935, there are people. People walking, people talking, people shopping, people smiling. In 1987, a solitary soul stands by a tree and another lurks on a corner in the distance.

So after spending a lot of time driving through East Liberty and also seeing what the neighborhood used to be, I started thinking a lot about what revitalization would/could look like. How could a once-thriving business district - often referred to as Pittsburgh’s second downtown - that had undergone misguided renewal already, renewal that thoroughly destroyed the neighborhood’s vitality, regain its life and become vibrant once again?

Right around the time I moved into the Penn Avenue corridor in the east end, Whole Foods opened at the so-called Eastside complex along Center Avenue, and this was hailed as a step toward revitalization for the jobs it would provide.

But, once again donning my clever civic observer hat, I pondered aloud, “Doesn’t anyone see the ugly symbolism here: the jobs will go to African-Americans from the neighborhood, and they will be employed serving rich white people.” I thought I was very clever for that observation (of course, it would turn out that the jobs also went to hippies, so I wasn’t completely accurate on that).

Revitalization continued on the eastern outskirts of East Liberty with the Bakery Square project - still in progress and still reeking of government-developer stank - and Trader Joe’s, and once again I asked: Who are these projects for? Who shops at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods? Who will frequent Bakery Square, provided it maintains an aura of safety? Are these things really for the community? Or is revitalization being used synonymously with “bring in white money”?

Because if bringing in money from Shadyside and some of the more affluent surrounding communities is the key behind East Liberty’s revitalization, I’m not sure if I buy it. I don’t know if building destinations for out-of-towners is the best way to build a neighborhood and community. That was the premise behind the ill-conceived renewal of the 1960’s, and the results were disastrous (although the problem at that time wasn’t the intentions; it was the plan and the execution).

But then I read more about the history of the neighborhood.

In 1868, the City of Pittsburgh annexed what is now East Liberty. Thanks to its favorable location and Mellon's guiding hand, East Liberty became a thriving commercial center in the following years. East Liberty's merchants served many of Pittsburgh's industrial millionaires, who settled in nearby Shadyside and Point Breeze. Professionals in Highland Park and Friendship and laborers in Bloomfield and Garfield also shopped in East Liberty. By 1950, the area (now often called 'Sliberty) was a bustling and fully urban marketplace. )Wiki)

And then it hit me:

East Liberty was always a shopping destination for the white people who live outside the area. So by building Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods and the Richard Chen restaurant and Target and Bakery Square, East Liberty’s revitalization is being historically accurate.

Historically accurate revitalization: urban renewal with book-smarts.

So maybe I should just get off my high horse and accept that East Liberty’s renewal is what it is. Ideally, the influx of income will have a positive impact on the neighborhood and perhaps even provide an opportunity for local business owners to flourish as well (I’m particularly hopeful that the new retail space on the west end of the Circle will house some local businesses).

And I shouldn’t completely disregard some of the things East Liberty Development Inc. is trying to do. They’ve got a number of green initiatives in place, and I think the East Liberty Town Square idea - which seems to carry a much more organic tone than Bakery Square - is a good one, since it should make the main Penn Avenue corridor more pedestrian-friendly.

I guess we’ll see what happens. Perhaps bringing in stores like Target and Whole Foods can be the impetus for change on a more community-based scale, and I certainly don’t know enough about city planning/urban renewal to say that’s not the case. But doesn’t it feel like real renewal, real revitalization, would take a different form?

Peak: Go Pat go

Peak: Some questions on the eve of the primary

- Any other 6th or 9th warders out there looking forward to the trip to St. Mary’s Lyceum on Tuesday?

- Is it just me or does Tonya Payne have the biggest campaign ads of any candidate in the city?

- Upon seeing one of those omnipresent “Ravenstahl Getting It Done” signs, has anyone else had the urge to knock on that person’s door and ask just exactly what Ravenstahl has gotten done for them?

- Is it hard to not read too much into the fact that the Bakery Square site has two of those signs?

- And does anyone else see a certain “pandering to the lowest common denominator” in the Ravenstahl camp blatantly co-opting the whole “Git ‘R Done” subculture?

- Is it wrong if I vote for Anthony “Tony” Ceoffe because the Lawrenceville United newsletter makes for a nice bi-monthly toilet reading? (Okay, that’s probably not a good idea)

- Is it wrong if I vote for Susan Evashavik DiLucente just because those “I’m choosin’ Judge Susan” signs are stuck in my head?

- Are there any political leanings I should know about when weighing the Allegheny County Bar Association judicial recommendations?

- Do newspaper endorsements carry weight to anyone other than newspaper editors and campaign managers?

- Wouldn’t it be interesting if some of the current City Council members issued endorsements of their own in this primary?

- Would Carmen Robinson’s efforts have been better-spent in the District 6 city council race?

- Wouldn’t it be nice to get some sign of involvement, some sign that apathy has not completely taken over this city?

- And wouldn’t it be nice if the indication that apathy has not won comes in the form of a plurality for Patrick Dowd?

- Is a there a percentage of votes that gives Dowd - win or lose - some kind of moral victory?

- And if Dowd doesn’t win, does a strong showing give him any added political clout on council or in the city?

- Why didn’t this get more pub, particularly from the Dowd camp? (***Update below***)

- In the Post-Gazette’s Twenty Questions for the Would-Be Mayor feature on Sunday, how many of Luke Ravenstahl’s answers could have been summed up with the response: “the status quo is fine”?

- How many people in this city think the status quo is fine?

- Isn’t it obvious that certain notions - like transparency in government and accountability for city officials - are good things?

- As a matter of fact, can anyone give one good reason why Luke Ravenstahl should be re-elected?

- If I put a picture of me and a picture of Luke Ravenstahl next to each other, do you think I could convince people that the Mayor endorses this blog?

- And from there, how many steps will it take to get my name on a garbage can?

- At the very least, could I get invited to Ravenstahl’s Election Night Party at Hofbrauhaus in the South Side Works (since I can’t get a table there otherwise)?


***Update*** - Just got an e-mail from the Dowd people. They sent out a media advisory about the call, but apparently the local press didn't really bite on it. Here's the text of the e-mail that was sent to the media:

An interactive telephone town hall where voters will have an opportunity to ask Democratic Mayoral Candidate Patrick Dowd questions about his reform vision for Pittsburgh.

Patrick Dowd will bring cutting-edge technology to his grassroots campaign for reform, reaching out to tens of thousands of Pittsburghers in the decisive final days before Tuesday’s primary, something that has not been done before in a mayoral primary. “This campaign for reform is about giving Pittsburghers a voice.” Dowd said. “My campaign is grassroots – not astroturf – so I don’t have millions to spend on TV commercials. Instead I’m trying to find new ways to bring people together so we can talk about how to reform Pittsburgh, whether it's answering a voter's final question before she heads to the polls or talking to someone for the first time. Together, we can bring change.”

Personally, I think it's a pretty cool idea. We'll see if it helps tomorrow.

Peak: Fair and balanced

While my blog has been largely dormant for the past two years - with only smatterings of activity, generally between May and July - I haven’t lost touch with Pittsburgh’s online community. The list of links on the right side of this page includes the blogs I read the most, and if you keep a regular diet of those sites, you’ll generally have some sense of what’s going on in Pittsburgh.

Anyway, if you spend any considerable amount of time on those blogs - and their comment threads - you’ll likely encounter The Pittsburgh Hoagie, aka Matt Hogue, a member of the Allegheny Democratic Committee. Mr. Hogue is a political blogger who also frequently posts on other blogs, and it doesn’t take long to see where his alliances fall. Mr. Hogue is a staunch party member and his full support lies with Luke Ravenstahl.

As such, it has become fairly expected to see Mr. Hogue show up on local blogs announcing his support for the current Mayor in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. The problem is, Mr. Hogue’s support is so unfailing, so determined, and so relentless that it comes across as a blindly and thoughtlessly towing the party line.

Now, I don’t know Mr. Hogue. I’ve never met him, never corresponded with him, and only once or twice posted a comment on his blog. So I don’t wish to speak for his study of the Mayor or his challengers, Patrick Dowd and Carmen Robinson, and I am only presenting the perception of Mr. Hogue’s comments and postings, not his actual line of thinking.

Anyway, as I was reading the local blogs one day - probably a comment from Mr. Hogue (aka Matt H) like the one on this post, which offers very little insight and screams of blind obedience - I started thinking about the recurring themes in Mr. Hogue’s posting. And it occurred to me that, if Mr. Hogue truly is thinking for himself and not just following the line of the party, then the best thing he could do would be to voice his own concerns about the current Mayor. By showing some objectivity, Mr. Hogue might sway some of the perceptions about him that exist in the so-called “Burghosphere” (if he were so inclined).

But then I realized that what’s good for the goose is, indeed, good for the gander. If Mr. Hogue can grant himself some credibility by showing some critical thinking about the Mayor, then so should I. Throughout the recent history of this blog, I have spoken against Luke Ravenstahl and in favor of Patrick Dowd and Carmen Robinson.

But the truly informed, truly objective voter understands that there are no absolutes: Dowd is obviously not an absolute positive, nor is Ravenstahl an absolute negative. He became Mayor in September of 2006; surely something good must have happened in the past 32 months, right?

So, in an effort to be as objective as possible - and to convince myself that I’m not just following the “Anyone But Ravenstahl” party line - I set out to find some positive things the Mayor has done for the city of Pittsburgh.

I figured the easiest way to accomplish this was to go to the Mayor’s home court. There is no purer form of self-serving rhetoric - and I say this in reference to all candidates for all elected office - than a campaign year website. Surely we’ll find some positives in there, and then I can feel good about myself when I go to the polls on Tuesday and vote for Patrick Dowd.

So let’s see; what can we find…

Okay, here we go:

During his three years in office, Mayor Ravenstahl has been "Getting it Done" for Pittsburghers. Clean and safe neighborhoods, new development, balanced budgets, diversity, technology, transparency and green are just a few of the ideas that come to mind to define the Ravenstahl agenda.

Ugh. This is not going to be easy.

Safe neighborhoods - Yeah, no. Last year’s homicide rate kind of screws that one up.

New developments - Yes, I suppose there have been some new developments. But with the near-daily emergence of new developer-slash-campaign contributors who end up getting benefits from city government - check the sixth paragraph in this piece for a recent example - (with a hat-tip to The Radical Middle, as well as a thanks for the shout-out) the new developments all seem to carry a little stink.

Balanced budgets - That seems to fall under the umbrella of “things he takes credit for but doesn’t really deserve to.”

Diversity - I don’t have any real numbers on this but I have to say that it’s hard to imagine this administration really being that diverse.

Technology - Sure I guess the Mayor has probably kept the computers on Grant Street up to date. Or something.

Transparency - You’re kidding, right? This administration wouldn’t have half the problems it’s got right now if there was any kind of transparency. This one falls under the “It wouldn’t be listed here if Dowd didn’t say it so damn much” category.

Green - Yeah, the city seems to be making some strides on the green front. I guess.

Okay, so that didn’t go so well. There have to be some things that he’s done well, but since that blurb in his bio didn’t help, I’ll have to come up with some on my own.

The Pittsburgh Promise - This thing seems to have a lot of detractors, and I can admit that it’s not a perfect system, but it’s a good start and the intentions are at least headed in the right direction. Ravenstahl didn’t come up with it and he wasn’t the one who noticed it working in Kalamazoo and he wasn’t the one who decided to bring it to Pittsburgh, but he helped the process along once it got started, and I’ll give him credit for that.

311 - I don’t know what other people’s experience has been with 311, but I’m okay with it. I like the concept, and the few times that I’ve called it, I’ve gotten results. Plus, I’ve noticed a lot of patches getting done on streets and alleys around me - including the one that was used in the famous Pokey Politics video (watch the second video on the page) - and I’m assuming that 311 calls were the source of the fixes.

The baseball field in Bloomfield - This one hits home since I live in Bloomfield and have lived near the baseball field for more than six years. The ballfield under the Bloomfield Bridge used to be a mess. It had a bad turf rug that was always bunched up in numerous places, and I can’t imagine anyone ever really wanted to play on it. Now the field is really, really nice. Grass, good dirt, big foul poles, a warm-up bullpen beyond the outfield; I mean, I’d say it’s almost state of the art. And Ravenstahl was behind it; I know this because there was a sign with his name on it for a year or two after it was finished.

(Sorry about the quality of photo; my cell phone's camera lens is pretty dusty)

So I did it. I came up with three good things the Mayor has done for Pittsburgh. That’s pretty good, right?

Now I can feel a proper sense of self-righteousness about voting for Dowd on Tuesday because I am an objective voter. Hooray!

Peak: A good reason to run

Photo: Post-Gazette

In the past few weeks of blogging about next week’s Democratic primary, I think I’ve been pretty up-front about my opinions regarding the three candidates for the party’s mayoral nomination: Luke Ravenstahl, Patrick Dowd, and Carmen Robinson.

Not surprisingly, I’m pretty firmly in Dowd’s camp for a number of reasons. But lately I’ve been thinking back to the first time I met the District 7 councilman. It was back in January at one of his Council-to-Go meetings, which provide a unique opportunity to interact with the councilman in a localized small-group setting.

The Council-to-Go I attended was in Polish Hill. I was living in Lawrenceville at the time, but I couldn’t find any info about a meeting in my neighborhood so I decided to crash the party. At the time, speculation was running rampant that Dowd would be announcing a candidacy for the Democratic mayoral nomination so I figured I’d head up to Polish Hill and see if he’d say anything about that.

Naturally the Council-to-Go meetings are more geared toward the voicing of local concerns, and the Polish Hill gathering was very much in that vein. But at one point in the evening, a resident somewhat off-handedly remarked "So I hear you're running for mayor." A quiet, almost uncomfortable chuckle came from the group, but Dowd didn’t shy away from the question.

“We’re talking about it,” he said. “It’s about frustration, and maybe that’s not a good reason to run.”

That really caught my attention. Was frustration a sound reason to seek public office? That was the question I asked myself from time to time over the next month until Dowd officially announced his candidacy.

And as the campaign went on, I kept thinking back to that night in Polish Hill. After attending the meeting I began writing a blog post that never made it online, but here’s part of what I wrote/thought:

Is frustration a good motivational tool?

I’m really not sure. I think that running out of frustration is somewhat different from running in the interest of change/progress, and even if the two overlap and intersect in a number of ways, there are still some distinctions that could affect the end results.

And I tossed these questions around throughout March and April. But in the past few weeks, as I’ve watched the three candidates debate and I’ve read their comments in the press and observed their actions, I’ve come to believe that not only is frustration a good motivational tool, it could be the most appropriate cause for running in this election.

Frustration is - or at least should be - a major part of next Tuesday’s primary. For progressive, reform-minded voters and candidates, frustration is the driving force behind everything that will happen at the polls next week. With each new item of indiscretion and each new thwarting of responsibility that comes to light, the danger of Luke Ravenstahl and his administration becomes more and more threatening.

But it’s not just the threat of Ravenstahl that creates the frustration; it’s the complete and utter lack of - and disregard for - accountability and leadership that has led this city into its current state. And because the Mayor and his administration refuse to accept responsibility or even answer the queries about their actions of the past three years, the city’s residents grow frustrated.

And that frustration is the bond that links us - all of us, regardless of socioeconomic status - to Patrick Dowd, he of the doctorate in European intellectual history.

I didn’t get this at first. But slowly, Dowd’s frustration has come more and more to the forefront. I remember during the WPXI debate (can’t find any video to post) when the topic of trash cans came up, Ravenstahl famously accused Dowd of being on “three sides of an issue,” attempting to cloud Dowd’s accusations by juxtaposing the purchase of $1,000 trash cans with Dowd’s request for trash cans in his district.

The Mayor’s “logic” - at least as he stated it - said that, since Dowd requested trash cans, then he couldn’t criticize the Mayor for the purchase of $1,000 trash cans in the South Side. Obviously the rub is that Dowd likely never intended for his requested trash cans to cost $1,000, but it almost feels silly to point out how ridiculous Ravenstahl’s claims were, so I’ll leave to it The Radical Middle who summed up the situation pretty well:

Mr. Dowd again attacked Mr. Ravenstahl for buying $250,000 worth of garbage cans, and the mayor again noted that the councilman's office had requested the cans before twice criticizing their price tag.

"Mr. Flip-flop over there," the mayor called Mr. Dowd. "That's pretty creative. I didn't know you could be on three sides of an issue."

The Mayor is not that stupid. No one could possibly be that stupid. But he could, of course, be that disingenuous.

Okay, I’ll go with disingenuous. That makes the point.

But what was most interesting to me was that, as Ravenstahl was spewing this disingenuousness (which is actually a word), you could feel Dowd’s blood boiling. Hell, my blood was boiling. And as Ravenstahl spoke - with confidence, I might add - the “three sides of an issue” nonsense, Dowd was heard off-camera uttering the sarcastic laugh of a man who is debating with someone who is relying on twists of logic that few would actually believe.

It was the kind of laugh that you emit when you’re trying to avoid saying the words that are surging up your throat and into your mouth. Sometimes when you feel like you might throw up, a few hearty spits can do the trick to bed it back down temporarily, and that was the kind of laugh that came from Dowd.

Anyone who has ever been in a discussion/argument/debate with someone who is using poor logic and ridiculous miscontructions (not a word) of reason knows what Dowd was experiencing at that moment.

It was frustration.

And to further the dicussion of frustration, we have this (courtesy of The Pittsburgh Comet):



About halfway through, Dowd starts getting fired up, and by the end, he’s as animated as we’ve seen him in this election.

And I think it’s fantastic. Dowd is allowing the frustration - his original reason for running and perhaps the purest reason for running - to become his dominant emotion. He’s letting it all out, asking us all why we are sitting by and allowing these improprieties and illicit acts and everything else that has happened under this Mayor’s watch. He’s fed up with it, he doesn’t want it to go on any longer, and he believes that Pittsburgh should be in better hands.

Are his hands the best to do the job? Maybe. He seems to have a pretty good idea of what needs to be done.

But best of all, he has looked at the current situation and he is frustrated by it. That’s where he and I and hopefully many others share common ground.

Peak: An old issue resolved

The first - read: only - big issue on this blog came two years ago with the sordid tale of the Parkway West Rock Thrower. With a vigilance and, dare I say, exuberance virtually unmatched in just about any other area of my life, I paid daily diligence to the story as Jeffrey Angelo Ramous, aka The Parkway West Rock Thrower, was identified and arrested. And after his arrest, the story gained even more intrigue - for me, at least - as various details came out and copycats emerged.

If you're bored, you can follow my documentation of the saga here.

Anyway, I bring this up because today news is out that Ramous, the terror of the Parkway West, has been sentenced for his antics:

A Carnegie man was sentenced to 5 to 10 years in prison this morning for throwing rocks at cars on the Parkway West over a two-year span.

That line pretty much sums it up; no new details came out of the sentencing, in which Ramous pleaded no contest to the 40 counts against him.

Justice, thy will is done.

Peak: Getting on board

Patrick Dowd was probably already the popular choice in the local online community. Now the local mainstream media is on board as well:

The Post-Gazette endorses Patrick Dowd for the Democratic nomination for mayor on May 19.

The editorial board starts off its approach to the primary the way most of us have:

By pointing out why you shouldn’t vote for Luke Ravenstahl.

The string of youthful missteps that marked Luke Ravenstahl's first months in office have evaporated and the mayor has matured in the job, but Pittsburgh still lacks a leader with a broad, deep vision for the city's future.

You don't lead by arguing that there is nothing wrong with city contracting practices, even if -- in the face of numerous examples of pay-to-play politics and an approaching election -- you eventually order a long-needed ban on most no-bid professional contracts.

You don't lead by announcing good intentions, as the mayor has done in backing city-county consolidation efforts, but then doing little to pressure legislators to support them.

And you don't lead by mixing politics with the provision of government services, as Mayor Ravenstahl did when he reopened a city police station in the West End, which didn't make sense given the zone's relatively low call volume.

With its shrinking population, impending contract negotiations with city unions and growing pension and debt problems, Pittsburgh doesn't have time to wait for Mr. Ravenstahl, 29, of Summer Hill, to gradually evolve toward more sound positions. The city needs a stronger, forward-looking mayor who can move Pittsburgh ahead now.

I can’t really disagree that the first conclusion you must reach in this primary is that Ravenstahl needs to be replaced (“needs replaced”?). And while the P-G goes on to point out a number of reasons why Dowd is a pretty good candidate to do the replacin’, I think that they hit on one of the biggest issues right off the bat:

Leadership.

In my admittedly nascent position as an observer of city government and politics, one of the main truths I’ve absorbed over the past two or three years is that possibly the biggest quality Pittsburgh needs in a mayor is leadership. Strong, willful leadership. While Ravenstahl is probably directly responsible for a fair portion of the nonsense and chicanery that has taken place and continues to take place around the city, a major part of the problem appears to be that there are plenty of people working throughout city government who have milked their positions for all their worth.

And it’s a lack of strong leadership that permits this kind of environment to fester and grow.

So, first and foremost, Pittsburgh needs strong leadership. A close second behind leadership in the city’s list of needs is accountability for that leadership. And to get the accountability, you need transparency in all city government acts.

Leadership. Accountability. Transparency.

Sounds like three Patrick Dowd talking points, doesn’t it?

If nothing else, the guy seems to get it, and I suppose that’s why the Post-Gazette - and me, and most of the local blogs I read - are on board with Dowd.

Peak: Because it's good

And sometimes that's all the reason you need.

And because sometimes you need to be reminded that it's possible to be both dorky and soulful.

Peak: The best thing to come out of this election

Let’s face it: Pat Dowd and Carmen Robinson probably aren’t going to win the upcoming Democratic primary in the race for mayor of Pittsburgh. It’s just not likely. There’s a unique brand of apathy that leads a voter to the polls without really paying attention in the months - and years - leading up to the election, and that seems to be the prevailing approach for the greater Pittsburgh public.

The result of that kind of philosophy is that the incumbent wins, despite the best efforts of the challengers and a pretty strong group of reform-minded individuals who would really like to see something change.

Nevertheless, even if Pittsburgh re-elects Luke Ravenstahl, some good will have come from this campaign cycle. With any luck, the average city dweller has gotten exposure to some new ways to approach Pittsburgh’s problems. Ideally, this exposure would lead the general public to put more pressure on the city’s elected officials down the road, demanding accountability and responsibility for Pittsburgh’s future (and the best case scenario would have the demand for accountability and responsibility turn the next mayoral election into a referendum on the administration, which is what this election should have been, but that’s another topic altogether).

But one of the biggest benefits for the city that can come from this election is the emergence of Carmen Robinson as a relevant voice in Pittsburgh. Robinson entered the election as a private practice defense attorney with a checkered history on the Pittsburgh police force (“checkered” by some sexual harassment lawsuits) but at this point, with about three weeks left before the primary, she has established herself as an important public figure in the city.

Check out Tony Norman’s take on Robinson in the Post-Gazette and then read the P-G’s mayoral profile on Robinson. Several recurring themes:

Public servant. Public safety. Blue collar. Outsider. Not a politician. Community. Neighborhoods.

And I’m good with all of those things. The quality Robinson brings that neither Dowd nor Ravenstahl has been able to embody - in Dowd’s case - or seems to want to embody - in the case of Ravenstahl - is a real “from the bottom-up” approach. Robinson believes, and I agree, that you fix the problems of a city by starting at the lowest levels of the city and working your way up. Real, hands-on work that addresses problems one-by-one with real solutions.

Maybe I’ve taken too much influence from The Wire, but it seems like that’s the best way to address the real problems of urban life. Not with institutional overtures and governmental grandstanding, but with a real understanding of the nature of the urban problems.

Robinson seems to have that understanding, and some good ideas on how to begin the process of correcting some of these issues that have been festering for decades. In looking over some notes from the WTAE debate, time and again Robinson came back to the same notions:

- In her opening statement she talked about how there are two faces of Pittsburgh. One is the “most livable city” and the “city of champions,” but the other is, in her words, “a distressed city.”

- On the question of violence in the city, Robinson said that “violence is a preventable illness” and that the city must “approach it from a public health point of view.”

- Robinson also seems to understand that one of the most basic and crucial steps in curbing many of the shortcomings of urban life lies in correcting the school system, advocating that the mayor use his or her “bully pulpit to encourage the school system to change their ways.”

- Further on the school system, Robinson said that the Pittsburgh Promise was flawed because it needed to be extended to middle school students, hoping to get younger children into the program earlier so as to increase the likelihood of those children completing high school. Getting kids into college is good, she said, but they need to finish high school first.

And Robinson’s right about that: high school drop-out rates are a bigger problem than kids who graduate high school but don’t go to college. You need to do everything you can to ensure that kids at least get through high school. Another big campaign issue of Robinson’s - at least on the topic of education - is that there needs to be a focus on post-high school education for students who aren’t going to college. Trade schools and career-centered post-grad education is just as vital to creating a sustainable citizenry as sending kids to college is.

Robinson gets all of this, and I like that about her. I really do. But like I said, I just don’t see Robinson nor Dowd beating Ravenstahl.

Hopefully, though, Robinson’s support has swelled enough and her public presence has grown enough that she doesn’t just slide back into the private sector as a defense attorney. The best thing that could happen would be for whichever candidate wins the election - probably Ravenstahl - to find a position in city government for Robinson. Something relevant, something influential, something where she can be right behind every decision that gets made, ready to call out the Mayor or Council or whoever needs to get called out. Someone to kick a little ass when a little ass needs to be kicked.

Even if she doesn’t get to be mayor this time around, Carmen Robinson can serve this city well. I just hope that the powers recognize her value.

Peak: Appealing to the masses

The Steelers might be the kings of the town, but the Penguins are becoming political players (in a different way this time).

Apparently someone at Ravenstahl campaign HQ heard that the Pens-Flyers series is drawing good ratings. The first commercial of the first intermission during Tuesday's Game 4 was a pro-Luke ad. Now, I don't watch much local network television, but I think I watch enough to have an idea about what they show, and I have yet to see a Luke-for-Mayor ad this year.

Tuesday night was the first one I've seen.

According to SportsBusinessDaily (reg. required)...Sunday’s telecast of the Penguins-Flyers Game 3, drew a huge (for hockey) 1.7/4, NBC’s highest hockey ratings since the Winter Classic on New Year’s Day, and likely tied for the highest non-Finals/Winter Classic rating on NBC in the network’s history...According to Sports Media Watch, the game did a whopping 18.6/33 in Pittsburgh (Meaning 1 in every 3 households with a TV watched it) and a 7.0/15 in Philadelphia. (Courtesy of Puck The Media)

I guess hitting one out of every three households is a pretty good net to cast. Sports really does have a place in politics, even if it's just as a medium for spreading the word.

Peak: Would you buy this t-shirt?

I really want one of these t-shirts, but the price gets lower as the quantity goes up. So, here's my question to you:

Would you pay $15 for a Johnny Utah No. 9 Ohio State t-shirt? I would.





I'm being completely serious about this. If you would like a Johnny Utah t-shirt, let me know.

Peak: Fever in the funk house, Pt. 11 - Elephant

Or: How I fill up 2 GB

(Being the continuing alphabetical series of the contents of my iPod)





Album: Elephant
Artist: The White Stripes
Released: 2003

Track listing:
1. Seven Nation Army
2. Black Math
3. There’s No Home for You Here
4. I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself
5. In the Cold, Cold Night
6. I Want to Be the Boy to Warm Your Mother’s Heart
7. You’ve Got Her in Your Pocket
8. Ball and Biscuit
9. The Hardest Button to Button
10. Little Acorns
11. Hypnotize
12. The Air Near My Fingers
13. Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine
14. It’s True That We Love One Another


Allmusic.com review:
White Blood Cells may have been a reaction to the amount of fame the White Stripes had received up to the point of its release, but, paradoxically, it made full-fledged rock stars out of Jack and Meg White and sold over half a million copies in the process. Despite the White Stripes' ambivalence, fame nevertheless seems to suit them: They just become more accomplished as the attention paid to them increases. Elephant captures this contradiction within the Stripes and their music; it's the first album they've recorded for a major label, and it sounds even more pissed-off, paranoid, and stunning than its predecessor. Darker and more difficult than White Blood Cells, the album offers nothing as immediately crowd-pleasing or sweet as "Fell in Love With a Girl" or "We're Going to Be Friends," but it's more consistent, exploring disillusionment and rejection with razor-sharp focus. Chip-on-the-shoulder anthems like the breathtaking opener, "Seven Nation Army," which is driven by Meg White's explosively minimal drumming, and "The Hardest Button to Button," in which Jack White snarls "Now we're a family!" — one of the best oblique threats since Black Francis sneered "It's educational!" all those years ago — deliver some of the fiercest blues-punk of the White Stripes' career. "There's No Home for You Here" sets a girl's walking papers to a melody reminiscent of "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" (though the result is more sequel than rehash), driving the point home with a wall of layered, Queen-ly harmonies and piercing guitars, while the inspired version of "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself" goes from plaintive to angry in just over a minute, though the charging guitars at the end sound perversely triumphant. At its bruised heart, Elephant portrays love as a power struggle, with chivalry and innocence usually losing out to the power of seduction. "I Want to Be the Boy" tries, unsuccessfully, to charm a girl's mother; "You've Got Her in Your Pocket," a deceptively gentle ballad, reveals the darker side of the Stripes' vulnerability, blurring the line between caring for someone and owning them with some fittingly fluid songwriting.

The battle for control reaches a fever pitch on the "Fell in Love With a Girl"-esque "Hypnotize," which suggests some slightly underhanded ways of winning a girl over before settling for just holding her hand, and on the show-stopping "Ball and Biscuit," seven flat-out seductive minutes of preening, boasting, and amazing guitar prowess that ranks as one the band's most traditionally bluesy (not to mention sexy) songs. Interestingly, Meg's star turn, "In the Cold, Cold Night," is the closest Elephant comes to a truce in this struggle, her kitten-ish voice balancing the song's slinky words and music. While the album is often dark, it's never despairing; moments of wry humor pop up throughout, particularly toward the end. "Little Acorns" begins with a sound clip of Detroit newscaster Mort Crim's Second Thoughts radio show, adding an authentic, if unusual, Motor City feel. It also suggests that Jack White is one of the few vocalists who could make a lyric like "Be like the squirrel" sound cool and even inspiring. Likewise, the showy "Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine" — on which White resembles a garage rock snake-oil salesman — is probably the only song featuring the word "acetaminophen" in its chorus. "It's True That We Love One Another," which features vocals from Holly Golightly as well as Meg White, continues the Stripes' tradition of closing their albums on a lighthearted note. Almost as much fun to analyze as it is to listen to, Elephant overflows with quality — it's full of tight songwriting, sharp, witty lyrics, and judiciously used basses and tumbling keyboard melodies that enhance the band's powerful simplicity (and the excellent "The Air Near My Fingers" features all of these). Crucially, the White Stripes know the difference between fame and success; while they may not be entirely comfortable with their fame, they've succeeded at mixing blues, punk, and garage rock in an electrifying and unique way ever since they were strictly a Detroit phenomenon. On these terms, Elephant is a phenomenal success.

I can admit it: I was late to the party with the White Stripes. For the longest time I held myself at a distance, occasionally pondering what the big deal was about these two weird pale kids from Detroit who had made a band without a bass. Much like I was too good for three-minute songs, I was also too good for whatever was considered the contemporary rock ‘n’ roll of the day. Sure, I had heard the high praise of how Jack and Meg White tapped into a vein of blues-based rock not heard since the hey-days of Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. But by that point in my life I was cynical enough to instantly revolt from those kinds of comparisons; inevitably, all of the bands/athletes/politicians/authors etc. who were considered the “second coming” of whatever greatness had preceded them always seemed to fall short of even the most meager expectations.

So it was pretty easy to ignore the White Stripes, no matter how many times “Fell in Love With a Girl” and “Seven Nation Army” came on the radio (although, to this day those songs still don’t do much for me).

Then, a year or two ago, I thought I’d stop blindly casting off the White Stripes and actually listen to their albums; that way, when I wanted to be condescending and elitist to people who claimed the White Stripes were good, I could cite chapter-and-verse all the ways they were not good.

But, as has happened quite often in my life, my venture to prove my blind dislike turned upside down, and as I listened to more and more White Stripes, from Elephant to White Blood Cells to Get Behind Me Satan, I couldn’t help it:

The White Stripes are pretty damn good.

And so it is with Elephant, the White Stripes’ fourth studio album and their follow-up to the mega-hit White Blood Cells. Powered by the success of “Seven Nation Army,” Elephant was another mega-hit, and as I listened to the album over and over, it occurred to me that its success was not tied to one hit single; rather, the whole album surges with rock energy. Whether it’s the building-but-alternated power of “I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself” (which features some great Jack White screeching, both vocally and guitar-lly), the pulsating harmonies of “There’s No Home for You Here,” the frenetic “Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine,” or even “In the Cold, Cold Night,” which carries equal parts sultry allure and nerdy awkwardness, Elephant is a complete album, worthy of listen from the opening hit single all the way to the grinning closer “It’s True That We Love One Another” (and that list doesn’t include the awesomeness of “The Air Near My Fingers” or “The Hardest Button to Button”).

For me, the highlight of the album is the seven-minute primal blues jam “Ball and Biscuit.” I once read somewhere (I think it was in Rolling Stone) that the White Stripes are proof that a couple of kids in a garage band really can make it big, provided those kids are geniuses. I think “Ball and Biscuit” puts that claim on display as well as anything else: the groove is basic and the guitar licks are raw, to say the least. But it’s that rawness that draws us all into the White Stripes every time.

Peak: Smooth like velvet

Peak: Fever in the funk house, Pt. 10 - The Devil's Rejects

Or: How I fill up 2 GB

(Being the continuing alphabetical series of the contents of my iPod)





Album: The Devil’s Rejects: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Artist: Various artists
Released: 2005

Track listing:
1. Midnight Rider – The Allman Bros. Band
2. Shambala – Three Dog Night
3. Brave Awakening – Terry Reid
4. It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels – Kitty Wells
5. Satan’s Got to Get Along Without Me – Buck Owens & His Buckaroos
6. Fooled Around and Fell in Love – Elvin Bishop
7. I Can’t Quit You Baby – Otis Rush
8. Funk #49 – James Gang
9. Rock On – David Essex
10. Rocky Mountain Way – Joe Walsh
11. To Be Treated – Terry Reid
12. Free Bird – Lynyrd Skynyrd
13. Seed of Memory – Terry Reid
14. I’m at Home Getting Hammered (While She’s Out Getting Nailed) – Banjo & Sullivan


Allmusic.com review:
"Have fun scrapin' all them brains off the road!" That's just one of the lively quotes peppering the between-song crevices on the soundtrack to Devil's Rejects, Rob Zombie's sequel to his 2003 horror genre throwback House of 1000 Corpses. The dialogue snippets add character to the set, just like the blood, shotguns, and verité mug shots of its artwork. (To say nothing of the entirely separate album released from Banjo & Sullivan, the film's fictional honky tonkers.) Yeah, you can say whatever you want about Zombie. Just don't ever call him unimaginative. Devil's Rejects adheres to its time period with a brace of rock from 1973 through around 1975, and blends the tracks from James Gang ("Funk #49"), Three Dog Night ("Shambala"), and the Allmans ("Midnight Rider") with classic honky tonk from Kitty Wells and Buck Owens. It's a great blend of album rock, air guitar faves, eccentric picks, and country ramble — it would be like the perfect radio road trip down I-65, if radio in America actually still sounded like this. Devil's Rejects also features three selections from '60s British rock dark horse Terry Reid, "Brave Awakening," "Seed of Memory," and "To Be Treated." All three stand up well. They suggest Led Zeppelin's folksier side — "Treated" sounds a lot like "Stairway to Heaven" — but could also be templates for 21st century troubadours like Ryan Adams or Damien Rice. Reid's also a creative, evocative choice next to workhorses from Skynyrd ("Freebird") and Joe Walsh ("Rocky Mountain Way"). Devil's Rejects closes with some hokey "radio spots" and a bumpkin rustle called "I'm at Home Getting Hammered (While She's Out Getting Nailed)" from that fantasy Nashville duo Banjo & Sullivan. Overall it's a thoroughly entertaining soundtrack, as happily crass and drive-in proud as the film itself. "And if you don't like it you can kiss my grits," as one of the B&S spots concludes.


It seems to me that a really good soundtrack almost serves the same function as a mix-tape: a collection of songs, sometimes eclectic, sometimes connected, put together in such a manner as to create a feeling of moving from start-to-finish. When they are well-done, soundtracks should achieve the start-to-finish flow as they follow the pace of the film.

With that in mind, The Devil’s Rejects excels as a soundtrack. Not only are there great, great songs here, but the order flows from “Midnight Rider” all the way through to “Seed of Memory” (never mind “I’m at Home Getting Hammered,” by the fictional Banjo & Sullivan). I left the movie soundbites off my iPod, but those add more of the film’s atmosphere to the soundtrack.

Really, what’s not to like about the tunes on this soundtrack? It’s got everything a fan of 70’s music could ask for: great Southern rock; two, count ‘em, two Joe Walsh tunes; some of the best pop rock from the era; some high-quality honky tonk; and the incredible Terry Reid songs. I’ll be honest: I didn’t know much about Reid before this soundtrack; after hearing his tunes in the movie and on the soundtrack, I think he’s worth further investigation.

Truth be told, I’m just a huge fan of this movie. So much so that I am confident that it is one of my top 10 favorite movies of all-time. That’s a high pedestal, but I just can’t talk myself out of it, and it’s a shame that the stigmatized trio of the movie’s title, its director (Rob Zombie), and its predecessor (House of 1,000 Corpses) has dissuaded viewers from ever taking the time to watch it. Far from the over-the-top/music video-esque/uber-horror psychedelia of House, The Devil’s Rejects is an altogether more organic production, with none of the trippy graphics or cut-aways, none of the heavy metal tracks, and nothing even approaching that weird underground sequence near the end of House.

In a way, the soundtrack for The Devil’s Rejects reflects the film’s nature, with its 70’s rock atmosphere. The Devil’s Rejects is almost a buddy movie, following the family of psychos as they run from the law and toward their doom. It’s a testament to Rob Zombie’s development as a filmmaker that he’s able to take the despicable, stomach-turning band of freaks from House and turn them into a group of real human beings with real feelings and real emotions. By the end of The Devil’s Rejects, we see the humanity in the murderers, we sympathize with them, we almost cheer for them, and when they meet their eventual doom, we can’t help but feeling a little lost.

And that’s where the highlight of The Devil’s Rejects comes in. Really, the highlight that I’m including in this post is more the highlight of the movie. To tell the truth, I’ve watched this scene probably 20 or 30 times, and it gets me every single time. There are moments when you get chills, moments when your heart starts racing, and moments when you feel genuine human emotion resulting from the combination of what’s happening on the screen and the music coming out of the speakers.

This is where I think Zombie has pulled off his biggest accomplishment with The Devil’s Rejects. I think the surest sign of effective use of music in a film is when you can’t separate the film from the music. When I hear the end section of “Layla,” I invariably think of the multiple-killings scene in Goodfellas. In The Devil’s Rejects, there are two instances of this music-film connection. The first is the opening credits and “Midnight Rider;” I haven’t heard “Midnight Rider” since and not thought of that sequence. The second occurrence of the inextricably-linked music-film connection in The Devil’s Rejects is in the scene shown below. It’s the film’s final scene, and if you haven’t seen the movie, I think you would be well-served to watch it before you watch this scene.

If you have seen the movie, then this is my gift to you on a May Thursday. I can’t watch this scene without getting all caught-up and wanting to watch the whole damn movie, and I imagine that most people who have seen the movie probably feel the same way. The look on Otis’ face…oh, man.

It’s just that good.

Peak: Still some heat in the Cheapskate

I should probably amend that logo that I used on the last Cheapskate update. Instead of showing a roller skate on fire, it should be the Tampa Bay Rays’ logo en fuego, because the Rays are one of the hottest teams in the MLB right now, let alone the Cheapskate standings.

Tampa Bay has the longest current winning streak in the league as winners of six in a row, and that streak of success has vaulted the Rays back into the top spot in the AL East, ahead of the slumping Red Sox.

In the world of the Cheapskate, Tampa Bay’s run has the Rays holding on to second place behind only the very cheap Marlins. And what’s more, the Rays’ cost per win in this update (around $458,000) is the lowest mark achieved by a team other than Florida this season.

Speaking of the Marlins, they’ve hit a bit of a rough stretch, as their seven-game winning streak was snapped by losses in the first two games of a series at pitiful Cincinnati. Florida still sits at the top of the NL East and the Cheapskate, and they get two more shots at the Reds before heading home to host the Royals, so I’m guessing that the Marlins are still in good shape.

Oakland could use another upswing. Sure, the A’s are only .5 game back in the AL West and hanging in third in the Cheapskate, but they’ve gone 5-5 over their last 10. They lost to the Indians in Cleveland last night; after two more games against Chief Wahoo, they’ll be off to Atlanta to face the really-good-at-home Braves. Oakland needs to get on the winning track or they could fall further in the West and the Cheapskate.

And then there’s the flirting-with-.500 Pirates. Winning the opener of Monday’s double-header put the Buccos one game under the magic mark of average-ness, but they dropped the second game. Last night, they rebounded and bounced the Cardinals in St. Louis, and they’re right back to one game under. Pittsburgh is currently 4 games back in the NL Central, but they’ve got a tough stretch coming up; sweeping, or at least taking two-out-of-three from, the Cardinals would go a long way toward establishing some positive momentum.

In the Cheapskate, the Pirates are now just over $100,000 behind the third-place team (in this case, Oakland). This is about as close as the Buccos have gotten to climbing out of the Cheapskate cellar, but a healthy run of winning baseball can push Pittsburgh out of the depths and into contention.

Just to refresh, the Cheapskate rewards the team that is able to spend the least amount of money per win. Here are the numbers we’re working with.

Total salaries (according to this list published by the Associated Press):

Pittsburgh $49,365,283
Oakland $47,967,126
Tampa Bay $43,820,598
Florida $21,836,500

Cost per game:

Pittsburgh $304,723.97
Oakland $296,093.37
Tamp Bay $270,497.52
Florida $134,793.21

We’re rewarding value-based mediocrity and the teams that get the most out of spending the least.



Record: 23-16
Standing: 1st in NL East
Games back: 0
Money spent per win: $228,562.40

Record: 23-16
Standing: 1st in AL East
Games back: 0
Money spent per win: $458,669.70

Record: 23-17
Standing: 2nd in AL West
Games back: .5
Money spent per win: $514,944.99


Record: 19-20
Standing: 5th in NL Central
Games back: 4
Money spent per win: $625,486.04

Peak: This skate's on fire!

And I thought the Cheapskate teams were on fire in the last update.

Look out, big-money markets of Major League Baseball:

Here come the bottom-feeders.

Every single one of the four teams in the running for the first-ever Cheapskate award is on fire. The unbelievable Marlins continue to sit in first place in the NL East on the strength of a seven-game winning streak. The amazing Rays of Tampa Bay are back within 1.5 games of the AL East-leading Red Sox after winning four in a row. The Athletics have held on to the top spot in the AL West by winning four of their last six. And even the Pirates, in all of their crapitude, are currently riding a five-game winning streak that has enabled them to climb to two games under .500 and just a half-game out of fourth place in the NL Central.

It’s amazing what these value-minded bargain-basement teams are accomplishing. And people say the dollar is weak.

Just to refresh, the Cheapskate rewards the team that is able to spend the least amount of money per win. Here are the numbers we’re working with.

Total salaries (according to this list published by the Associated Press):

Pittsburgh $49,365,283
Oakland $47,967,126
Tampa Bay $43,820,598
Florida $21,836,500

Cost per game:

Pittsburgh $304,723.97
Oakland $296,093.37
Tamp Bay $270,497.52
Florida $134,793.21

We’re rewarding value-based mediocrity and the teams that get the most out of spending the least.

Florida has held on to the top spot in the Cheapskate all season, but the Marlins’ new mark of $216,000 per win is the lowest since the first Cheapskate standings. Tampa Bay’s winning streak has vaulted the Rays into second place in the Cheapskate for the second time this season. And while the Pirates are still bringing up the rear, their current rate of $645,000 per win is as low as they’ve had since the season’s second Cheapskate update, when they got down to $565,000 after a big winning streak.

Coming up next, the Marlins go to Cincinnati for a four-game series against the worse-than-the-Pirates Reds. Tampa Bay hosts the stuck-at-.500 Yankees for a four-game series. Oakland has Monday off before a three-game series at Cleveland. And the Pirates wrap up their four-game home tilt against the Braves with a double-header on Monday before going to St. Louis to start a three-game series against the Cardinals.



It’s a big time for the Cheapskate teams. Here are the most recent standings:




Record: 23-14
Standing: 1st in NL East
Games back: 0
Money spent per win: $216,841.25

Record: 21-16
Standing: 2nd in AL East
Games back: 1.5
Money spent per win: $476,590.87

Record: 23-16
Standing: 1st in AL West
Games back: 0
Money spent per win: $502,071.37


Record: 17-19
Standing: 5th in NL Central
Games back: 4.5
Money spent per win: $645,297.82

Peak: Fever in the funk house, Pt. 9 - Desire

Or: How I fill up 2 GB

(Being the continuing alphabetical series of the contents of my iPod)




Album: Desire
Artist: Bob Dylan
Released: 1976

Track listing:
1. Hurricane
2. Isis
3. Mozambique
4. One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)
5. Oh, Sister
6. Joey
7. Romance in Durango
8. Black Diamond Bay
9. Sara


Allmusic.com review:
If Blood on the Tracks was an unapologetically intimate affair, Desire is unwieldy and messy, the deliberate work of a collective. And while Bob Dylan directly addresses his crumbling relationship with his wife, Sara, on the final track, Desire is hardly as personal as its predecessor, finding Dylan returning to topical songwriting and folk tales for the core of the record. It's all over the map, as far as songwriting goes, and so is it musically, capturing Dylan at the beginning of the Rolling Thunder Revue era, which was more notable for its chaos than its music. And, so it's only fitting that Desire fits that description as well, as it careens between surging folk-rock, Mideastern dirges, skipping pop, and epic narratives. It's little surprise that Desire doesn't quite gel, yet it retains its own character — really, there's no other place where Dylan tried as many different styles, as many weird detours, as he does here. And, there's something to be said for its rambling, sprawling character, which has a charm of its own. Even so, the record would have been assisted by a more consistent set of songs; there are some masterpieces here, though: "Hurricane" is the best-known, but the effervescent "Mozambique" is Dylan at his breeziest, "Sara" at his most nakedly emotional, and "Isis" is one of his very best songs of the '70s, a hypnotic, contemporized spin on a classic fable. This may not add up to a masterpiece, but it does result in one of his most fascinating records of the '70s and '80s — more intriguing, lyrically and musically, than most of his latter-day affairs.


The second Dylan album on my iPod is one of the more unique recordings by arguably the greatest songwriter of the 20th century, since seven of the record’s nine tracks were co-written with theater director/songwriter/clinical psychologist Jacques Levy. The result is a collection of perhaps the most literal songs Dylan ever released. You won’t find much in the way of “smoked my eyelid and punched my cigarette” on this album; instead you get a handful of straight-ahead story songs that tell you exactly what they think. There’s no mystery or surrealism in “Hurricane” or “Joey” and anyone with the reading comprehension of a fourth grader can understand those songs for precisely what they are. Only “One More Cup of Coffee” and “Sara” were penned by Dylan alone, but those two don’t deviate much from the straightforward-ness of the Dylan/Levy numbers.

The other unique element of Desire is Scarlet Rivera, whose violin brings a haunting tone to every song in the album and adds more depth to the tunes that one would think a single instrument was capable of. The instant the violin appears in each track, things become exponentially darker, livelier, and altogether more interesting.

“Hurricane” is probably the best-known track on the album, and for good reason: here is Dylan pulling no punches, going after the man in a way that only he can, with enough fire, vitriol, and pure anger to break down prison walls. At times, Dylan ever foregoes the notions of rhythm, verse, and rhyme to make his points, and the effect is even more powerful.

Naturally, such incendiary statements as were made in “Hurricane” drew public ire (which, really, is the only way to gauge effectiveness; if you write a song like “Hurricane” and it doesn’t piss people off, you’ve probably failed). But in reading about Desire, it seems that “Joey” caught a lot of flack, too, for its rather flattering portrayal of mobster Joey Gallo. You can read the wikipedia write-up on Desire for more details, but the short version is that in “Joey” Dylan romanticized a rather un-romantic/un-sympathetic figure. Far from the wrongly-accused Rubin Carter of “Hurricane,” Gallo was, by all accounts, a pretty bad person.

(The interesting sidenote is that Dylan seems to have concocted his notion of Gallo via conversations with actor Jerry Orbach, who was supposedly a friend of the mobster.)

For me, the highlight of Desire is “Isis.” With its driving piano (played by Dylan himself), the adventure-based tale of a man trying to find himself after probably marrying too early almost instantly became one of my favorite Dylan songs. Checking in at almost seven minutes (6:58 to be exact), “Isis” follows the narrator on a long journey that eventually leads him back to his bride; upon his return, the two have one of the greatest conversations ever set to music.

To wit:

She said ‘where you been?’
I said ‘no place special.’
She said ‘you look different.’
I said ‘well, I guess.’
She said ‘you’ve been gone.’
I said ‘that’s only natural.’
She said ‘you gonna stay?’
I said ‘if you want me to, yes.'

Good stuff. The video below is a live performance of “Isis,” but I recommend checking out the studio version as well for its steady, determined flow.

Really, as has been the case with pretty much every album I’ve included in this series so far, I highly recommend seeking out Desire. It’s a must-listen for Dylan fans, to be sure, and I think its appeal reaches even beyond that large segment of the population.