Tag: Pittsburgh

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Ditto.

Rush Limbaugh and I had a lot in common.

We’re both Baby Boomers, both from a small town in Missouri, and both of us grew up in a Republican family. Rush dropped out of college and then moved to Pittsburgh to try to become a radio DJ. I dropped out of college to smoke pot and protest the Vietnam War. Then I moved to San Francisco and became a night watchman and a busker for tourists in Ghirardelli Square. 

Both of our career paths were a bit murky there for a while.

Rush bounced from station to station for a few years, eventually ending up in Kansas City. I bounced from job to job out West and in Columbia, Missouri, where I eventually finished my journalism degree and found semi-honest work in the business where I still ply my trade.

Rush began his climb to glory in the wake of the overturning of the FCC Fairness Doctrine in 1987, when broadcasters were no longer constrained by having to provide equal time for opposing views, or for anyone who was attacked on air.

After getting some attention in Kansas City for his “public affairs” show, Rushbo got hired by WABC in New York and he quickly gained national notoriety for such actions as celebrating the deaths of gay men from AIDS with show tunes, coining the phrase “Femi-Nazis” for women’s rights activists, calling Chelsea Clinton the “White House dog,” and regularly saying revoltingly racist things about African Americans (too many to list here), all under the guise of “conservatism.” It was a truly deplorable schtick before deplorable became a thing, and one that resonated, appallingly, with much of white America. Rush got very rich with it.

In 1996, the Telecommunications Act allowed broadcasting companies to own stations in many markets and spawned radio syndication. Rush quickly got even bigger (literally) and richer and became a major player in the Republican Party. A slew of conservative Rush-clones emerged: Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Mark Levin, to name a few. Stirring up anger and outrage at liberals, Democrats, Blacks, Muslims, and immigrants was, and is, their stock-in-trade. And it’s made them rich.

Then came Fox News, the ultimate benefactor of the abolishment of the Fairness Doctrine. (“Fair and Balanced” being the lie from which all others were spun.) Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes built a television empire on right-wing outrage, angry white male hosts, short-skirted blondes, and lies.

Now, with the internet, the genie is out of the bottle. If you want “fair and balanced,” it’s strictly DIY. Pick your news to suit your views. If you believe climate change and COVID-19 are hoaxes, that Donald Trump won the 2020 election, that Texas lost power because of a Green New Deal that hasn’t been passed, that QAnon is onto something, that Antifa spawned the January 6th insurrection, that President Biden’s dog isn’t “presidential,” that the Bidens’ marriage is a “charade” … there’s a whole news ecosystem built just for you. Likewise, if you take the opposing point of view on any or all of those issues.

But it all started with Rush Limbaugh. And now he’s dead of lung cancer, at 70, leaving three ex-wives and a widow and millions of fans to mourn his passing. Lots of Republicans want to honor what they perceive as Limbaugh’s glorious legacy. He’s being called a great American, a true patriot — lauded by GOP politicians all over America. In Florida, the governor wants to fly the flag at half-mast in Limbaugh’s honor. In Rush’s home state of Missouri, legislators are talking about establishing a state holiday in his name. A state holiday! His bust already resides in the state capitol building — kind of like Nathan Bedford Forrest’s up in Nashville.

But let’s speak the truth here: Rush Limbaugh was not a great American by any fair and balanced measure. In his radio persona, he was a divisive, hateful, homophobic, racist, misogynistic asshole. What he was like in private, I can’t say, but I doubt that he and I had much in common when Limbaugh departed this earthly vale — far from his Missouri roots. I do hope he found peace at the end. It’s more than he wished for others.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Rock and Roll Never Forgets

CREDIT: Bruce VanWyngarden

Long-time readers of this column know that each May I take a journey to the backwoods of Western Pennsylvania, near the historic town of Ohiopyle, to hang with a few old friends and share lies and whiskey. This year, I added a little bonus trip.

It began with a couple of days in Pittsburgh, where I spent eight years as editor of Pittsburgh Magazine. I spent some time reuniting with a couple of former co-workers, but mostly I just drove around and marveled at the things that had changed. And the things that hadn’t.

Bruce VanWyngarden

Hey hey, my my. Rock-and-roll can never die.

The iconic things hadn’t changed — the Carnegie Museum, the University of Pittsburgh Cathedral of Learning (where I once taught undergrads how to write news features), the massive spires of PPG Place, and the rivers and bridges and countless green hills. What had changed is pretty predictable: Old neighborhoods like Lawrenceville are getting repopulated and redeveloped with those ubiquitous, glassy, boxy apartment buildings that seem to be the required urban redesign form these days. There were coffee shops where machine shops used to be. The infamous Sal’s Salvage was nowhere to be seen, replaced by yoga studios and boutiques and hip-looking cafes. The old Steel Town ain’t the same. It’s mostly better.

The next day, I continued my tour of the upper Midwest by driving over to Cleveland, where my son’s band, MGMT, was playing the Masonic Hall. I got to town before he did, so I did what you’re supposed to do in Cleveland: I went to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which sits on the very edge of Lake Erie, Downtown.

The building is a glassy pyramid (sound familiar?) designed by famed architect I.M. Pei, but it’s much smaller than Memphis’ Pyramid. Out in front is a long and linear (and Instagram-unfriendly) slogan: Long Live Rock. After backing up as far as could, I got a picture of “ONG LIVE ROCK.”

I paid my $28 and started the tour. It begins below ground level, where you are first forced to walk past a photographer who tries to get you to hold a guitar while he takes your picture and then sells it to you. I bypassed the line of grandmas and geezers waiting for their chance to strike a pose, strolled under a neon sign reading “For Those About to Rock,” and wandered into the dark room that begins the self-guided tour.

It starts with various historic exhibits meant to demonstrate the evolution of rock-and-roll — early blues artists, mostly. This area also includes musical artifacts and historic photos from the seminal rock cities, including Memphis (Furry Lewis’ guitar, some old blues records and posters, etc.), Detroit, New York, Chicago, L.A., San Francisco, etc. Notably, Cleveland is not among them. That would be because Cleveland’s claim to be the birthplace of rock-and-roll is specious and overblown, at best. But that’s another story.

The exhibits spiral from bottom to top, with lots of stair climbing from one exhibit level to another. One is forced to accept, after touring the six increasingly smaller floors (that pyramid construct has limitations), that rock-and-roll history is basically comprised of stage outfits and shoes worn by facsimile mannequins, old album covers, posters, vintage photos, music videos, and lots and lots and lots of guitars.

Major icons — Elvis, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Aretha, Springsteen, to name a few — are given individual displays. Michael Jackson, whom I suspect once had a place of prominence, has been downgraded to a single large photograph near an emergency exit — in case you have to beat it, I guess.

The history of hip-hop gets a nod, but not much else. This is a pretty caucasion kind of place, to be honest. As are most of the visitors.

As you leave, you are funneled — as you are in most museums, these days — into the gift shop, where a maze of over-priced T-shirts, guitar earrings, miniature pyramids, guitar picks, posters, snow globes, and other rock chotskies awaits. Meh.

They say rock-and-roll never forgets, but honestly, this place is, well, kinda forgettable.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Waiting on Judgment Day

CREDIT: The Squirrel Hill Cafe | Facebook

I lived in Pittsburgh for nine years. I know Squirrel Hill well. It’s a storied neighborhood of big sycamores, winding streets, and lovely old houses. It’s near Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, where I used to spend a couple evenings a week teaching writing to eager and not-so-eager freshmen. It’s close to WQED, where I used to work, editing Pittsburgh, the city’s magazine. Fred Rogers worked in the same building and lived nearby. I used to drink and eat at the Squirrel Hill Cafe, aka the “Squirrel Cage,” a great old neighborhood bar.

So when the news of a shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue appeared on my laptop last Saturday morning, I didn’t have to imagine the scene; I could easily visualize it. The latest episode of the American Horror Story was playing out in one of my old haunts — just as it’s played out in Las Vegas, Charleston, Parkland, Sutherland, Texas, and 151 other American hometowns since 2016. Just as it also played out in Kentucky, last week, and in Florida, where a would-be assassin attempted to kill two former presidents and a host of other notable Democratic politicians with pipe bombs.

The Squirrel Hill Cafe | Facebook

America is infected with hate and violence, and the disease is spreading. Most presidents, when they have seen a divide in the country, have sought to heal it. This president sees the divide and seeks to exploit it. Polarization and rage have become the new normal, and it’s coming from the top down.

Can we change course? Yes, but it’s going to take dedication and commitment and time and unrelenting activism — the kind of citizen involvement that drove the civil rights movement and stopped the Vietnam War — the kind of activism that jams the gears of power and changes the country’s direction. As Patti Smith sang, “the people have the power.” We just have to tap it.

It’s easy to be cynical, but if you doubt the power of activism, I point you to Memphis, Tennessee, where in just the past couple of years, activists have stopped the city council from letting the Memphis Zoo take over Overton Park’s Greensward for parking; brought down Confederate statues in city parks; stopped the TVA from drilling wells that would tap our precious aquifer; joined with ACLU to stop the Memphis Police Department from surveilling citizen activists; and halted (as I write this) the city council from using tax-payer funds to promote three self-serving ordinances.

That doesn’t include the women’s marches, the Black Lives Matter march on the I-40 bridge, the marches against this administration’s inhumane immigration policies, and numerous other citizen-led movements. The pot has been stirred. The people are woke. And we are a week away from judgment day — or, better said, the first judgment day, for this will not be a quick change.

I do not for a minute allow myself to believe there will be a magical “blue wave” that will transform the country’s zeitgeist next Tuesday. I do believe there will be gratifying and surprising victories, just as I believe there will also be depressing and frustrating defeats. But I am hopeful the pendulum has swung as far as it can toward “nationalism” and the open promotion of ethnic hatred and divisiveness. And I am hopeful the plague of angry male white supremacists wreaking havoc and terror on innocent Americans on a weekly basis can be stopped, or at least forced back into the sewers from whence it came.

After the attack on the Tree of Life, the Pittsburgh Muslim community immediately offered aid and comfort to their Jewish brothers and sisters. That is America at its best, and it’s who we can be if we resist seeing each other as “globalists” or “nationalists” or “bad hombres” or “Fake News” purveyors or “Pocahontas” or whatever other hate-boxes the president seeks to put us into. I believe Americans are better than the president thinks we are. We just have to show it. Starting next week.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

The Ebola “Crisis” Isn’t.

“He sounds kinda gay,” I said to my art director.

It was 1985. I was a young magazine editor living in Pittsburgh. I’d just gotten off the phone with a freelance writer who I’d agreed to meet for lunch. I was a liberal-thinking sort of fellow. I had no problem with gay people, though I didn’t know many back then.

“Lewis” and I had agreed to meet at a small restaurant near my office. It was a quiet place, perfect for conversation. I got there first.

Five minutes later, the front door burst open and a tall, thin, animated man came in and surveyed the room. He was wearing a beret and a long black coat. Around his neck was a six-foot-long scarf of many colors. He spotted me across the room and began to work his way through tables of diners, tossing his scarf over his shoulder as he approached. “THERE YOU ARE!” he boomed. “I’m SORRY I’m late! I’ve been running NIPPLES TO THE WIND all day, and I just can’t seem to catch up.” Heads turned, eyes rolled.

It was a hell of an entrance, and it led to a great friendship. I thought about Lewis again this week, as I read the latest fear-mongering news reports about the Ebola “epidemic.” Through my friendship with Lewis, I saw the horrific effects — second-hand, admittedly — of a real epidemic: AIDS. And there is no comparison.

In the 1980s, getting AIDS was a death sentence. And we had a president who didn’t even utter the name of the disease until five years after it had killed tens of thousands of Americans. I watched Lewis undergo the terrifying ritual of getting “the test,” going to the doctor to find out if he would live or die. He was negative, thankfully, but many of his friends were not. Most of them didn’t live more than a year or so. It was a dark and scary time.

Children who were HIV positive were turned away from school. Doctors who treated AIDS patients were shunned. Gay men were treated as pariahs. It took years for Americans to learn to deal with the epidemic in a rational manner. In the U.S. alone, 636,000 people have died from AIDS. World-wide, the death toll is 37 million, and the disease continues to kill. That’s an epidemic.

Ebola is a horrific disease with a 30 percent survival rate. It is ravaging three African countries with sub-standard medical and health facilities. We should be doing all we can to help stop the spread of the disease. But medical experts in the U.S. have assured us repeatedly that we are in no danger of an epidemic here. There have been four cases in the U.S. One person has died. Can we stop with the absurd over-reaction, please?

And can we please stop using the Ebola “crisis” for political gain? (Actually, I suspect much of the furor about Ebola will subside after the November 4th election. Which is a sad commentary, indeed, on the state of our electoral process.)

Yes, Ebola is scary, but we need to get a grip. Those of us of a certain age can remember what a real epidemic looks like. And this ain’t it. Not even close.