I answer your Tin Lizzy FAQs

 

First of all, I’m not a paid spokesperson for the Tin Lizzy so you can take my word that what I’m about to tell you is genuine. Having said that, I confess to every time I get my PA driver’s license renewed I for reasons I can not explain add another fraudulent inch to my height.

My license says I’m 5’11. I’m actually 5’7.

My goal is to live long enough to possess a license that says I’m 6’2.

It’s a peculiar format for a goal-driven fib.

It’s not like I believe I’ll one day get  pulled over and the  trooper will say, “Mr. Rodell, I pulled you over because I saw you swerving and I suspect you are either impaired or were playing Wordler on your phone.

“But your license says you’r over 6 feet tall so I have to let you go. I bid you ADIEU which if you are Wordlering today reveals two green and one yellow panel.”

I’ve had an office — the only office — in The Tin since July 15, 2015, the day after I was evicted from The Pond, which to me still feels as misguided as if someone had moved to evict Elvis from Graceland.

The Pond was the perfect bar for tipsy BSers like me. Just a great group of regulars. Every day the same dozen or so Regular Joes would gather for a daily guzzle. And — get this — seven of the Regular Joes were conveniently named Joe!

I remember the day my exasperated wife asked what the hell we talked about on those endless days of perfectly pointless bullshit.

“We talk about sports, we talk about politics and we talk about how different our lives would be if we went to a bar where women went.”

But I wasn’t a free agent for long. Not 1, 2, or 3, but 4 Latrobe bar owners called and offered me working space. It was like an Amber Alert went out for drunken local writers.

My friend Micah came through with the most appealing offer.

He had room for me in The Tin Lizzy.

Who could say no? I’ve written about it, owner Buck, and all my friends here many times. So I don’t speak for any of the vested parties here. I’m just one of the guys who happens to spend a lot of time here.

These are some of the questions I hear …

TL FAQs

Q: Is The Tin Lizzy open?

A; Yes, very much so. So open that there is one point in each day, that one of the three bars is practically vibrant. The trick, for now, is sensing which one is really hopping at the right time. But it only takes one person and one bartender to make it happen. Note: Hours and days for each bar differ, but you can get a drink in the Main Bar Monday thru Saturday from 7 a.m. thru (hours vary).

Q: What’s the deal with carding even the gray beards every time you come in?

A: That’s a question for the LCB. I will say this, if some pain-in-the-butt LCB regulation is enough to keep you from supporting this landmark business, one that’s for long stretches of the past 250 years meant a lot to our mothers/fathers/aunts/uncles and assorted oddball relations, then shame on you.

Q: How’s the food?

A: In the past 6 months I’ve had some of the best meals I’ve ever had in the building. And it was The Tin Lizzy where chefs Dato and Jaffre got their start. The menu is being tinkered with, but nothing that’s come out of Chef Cornell Taubert’s kitchen has ever disappointed me.

Q: Is the owner ever cranky?

A: The only diplomatic way to answer that question is with another question: “How cranky could he be and yet still be the recipient of the prestigious‘Employee of the Month’ award for more than 40 years straight?”

Q: Is TheTin Lizzy haunted?

A: I used to say I don’t believe in ghosts, but I never stay in The Tin Lizzy after dark when I’m all alone. Now I say, “Yes, it is! By the ghost of Arnold Palmer!” Then I just start making shit up.”

Q: Do you give tours?

A: One of my favorite things is when someone who’s read and enjoyed one of my books tries to sneak up the stairs and timidly taps on the door to say, “We don’t want to disturb you …” like I’m performing brain surgery on an undecided voter. I say, “Hell, I’ve been disturbed since 1992. C’mon in!” I consider it a privilege to give tours (’92 was the year I quit my last job).

Q: Do you have a favorite bar/bartender?

A: Yes, I do. He was Zack. He was 33 when he died in 2020. I miss him very much. I can say he was my favorite because, well, he was, and because when you die as young and as pretty as Zack sadly did you attain a sort of sainthood no mortal bartender can begrudge. And I can’t pick one former bartender because she threatened to stab me. True, she was having a bad day and dealing with the sassy provocation of her finding my car parked in her parking spot (this was back when I could afford a car). But it’d be unwise for me to encourage that sort of conflict resolution.  So who’s my favorite? The one standing in front of me. Which is my favorite bar? The one I’m sitting in.

So, yes, The Tin Lizzy is open. Yes, you can get a great meal there and, yes, you’ll be welcomed by a lot of smiling faces. Just be careful you don’t park in my parking spot. 

You wouldn’t want to anger a motorist whose driver’s license says he’s almost six feet tall.

Meeting a writer? Be very afraid

Has this ever happened to you? Someone tells you they write books and you’re not sure how to react. Here’s a tip: Be very afraid. You’ve just met a person of ruthless determination. 

That person stares down one blank page and vows, “I’m going to fill this vast emptiness with so much compelling and original thought that readers I’ve never met will not only absorb every word, but they’ll greedily want to devour every single page that follows.” He or she will repeat this process until he or she has vanquished the next 350 pages. 

Don’t be fooled by the writer’s benign appearance. The writer is a mass murderer. He or she has silenced all the voices that nag, “You’re wasting your time. Your ideas suck. Why don’t you get a real job?” And these are just the voices the writer hears inside his or her own head. 

The writer is relentless. Once he or she vows to finish the book, a grim singlemindedness takes over and the writer becomes impervious to distractions he or she mocks as frivolous. These duties may include things like childcare, residential upkeep and the relationships others consider so vital to mental well-being.

The writer is Messianic. He or she believes God ordains that the book must be written because its publication will lead to justice, understanding, social equality and MLB playoff games that conclude before midnight.

So show a little respect next time some stranger says he or she writes books.

Hell, there are things those writers could teach the aspirants to SEAL Team 6.

 

AI & newborns: when change is inevitable

 (606 words)

There weren’t many but there were enough of them that I had the sarcastic retort holstered and ready to be drawn.

It was 24 years ago and Val was about to deliver our first baby. We were unaware of the sex, but in what is now one of the lamest “Spoiler alerts!” that child was a female, born September 25, 2000. We named her Joslyn Rachel Rodell.

But right up to the moment she was born, she was a vast unknown, a vast 7-pound unknown. So many questions.

Boy or girl? Curly or straight haired? Savior or Satan?

That last one became a category after a handful of friends would greet the otherwise joyous news as if we expectant parents were being sent to a Siberian gulag for stealing a peach.

Their eyes shone with gleeful prophesy; their tone was one of vengeance spared not.

“So you’re having a baby. Ahhh …” Now, cue the cackle: ‘Boy, are your lives gonna change!’”

It became for me a hanging curve.

“Whew, boy, am I glad to hear it — ‘cause up til now, our lives have really, really sucked!”

It’s for lines like that that sarcasm was invented by, I think, a war-weary French soldier in response to Napoleon’s 1815  rally cry of, “We take Waterloo and the world is ours. Who’s with me!”

See, our lives had not sucked. Au contraire. We enjoyed travel, attending concerts, fancy dinners, and quiet nights at home reading or watching movies.

It was a very happy time.

So we found out the very first night our antagonists had been correct. Our lives really did charge.

They got better.

Much better. It’s impossible to gauge how happy being the father of darling Josie — and Lucinda Grace in ’06 — have made me.

Today, man, it’s been 24 years, bolstering my contention that time doesn’t fly. It drives a Maserati drunk down the Autobahn with a brick strapped to the gas pedal. 

But, oh, those 24 years. Old pictures pop up here and there and I see me smiling with those little girls in my arms and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture of a happier human.

Me!

The joyful memories are indelible. I’ve always been a happy fellow, but having our kids changed everything. They made it so much better.

I was thinking of those changes because I’ve allowed myself to descend into melancholy over the doomsday scenarios involving the inevitability that one day soon Artificial Intelligence would really, really change the world.

It would improve our existence or, whoop-sie-daisy, end it.

We can make a strong argument that our time is up. There’s war, climate change, ancient tribal hatreds, and on and on and …

Good riddance!

But what if they’re wrong? What if the reverse happens and AI ushers in a golden age where debilitating diseases are vanquished, leisure activities are allowed to flourish, and we all see ourselves and one another through appreciative new eyes.

I hope those are the benign kind of changes that surprise us.

So let’s not give into despondency over changes and consequences none of us can see.

Because being a living, breathing human being is still pretty sweet thing. 

Despite our world of woe, we can still enjoy watching a nail-biter at PNC Park, a fine meal on Pittsburgh’s Mt. Washington, and a night of romantic snuggling that’ll lead to the creation of one of those tiny, messy, wailing organisms the killjoys say will really change things.

Change is coming.

With so much division we need to understand that us being all wrong can still turn out all right.

I say we embrace change.

Because up til now, things have really, really sucked.

Latrobe Bulletin readers select favorite Local Author: It's me!

 

Thank you, Latrobe Bulletin readers for selecting me as your Favorite Local Author! Here's the letter-to-the-editor I wrote acknowledging the honor ...

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I must confess when my wife-to-be and I moved to Latrobe in ’92, it wasn’t because of the schools, the recreational opportunities, the history, or the character of the people, which I’ve come to regard as the most stellar on the planet.

No, I moved here because of the looming threat of Y2K pandemonium. Remember that panic? A numeric computer glitch was going to confuse all our critical machines into believing it was really the year 1900. That was three years before the Wright brothers first flight. Top experts warned the scenario would so befuddle modern aircraft that the machines would forget how to fly and begin to drop out of the sky.

Banks would fail, electricity would cease, our vehicles would  roll to a stop.

I read all this and my first thought was, “Hmmm, where in the world could I find a small town home that’s near a quality brewery that’ll ensure local residents have ready access to thirst quenching American lager?”

Hello, Latrobe!

I look back in hindsight and am amazed that a man so shallow-minded in every other way held such a deep capacity for cold beer. 

I jest, but Latrobe did have a unique set of intangibles appealing to a young writer eager to differentiate himself from the hordes of talented but indistinguishable freelancers working in NYC.

It had Arnold Palmer, Fred Rogers, Steeler training camp, Rolling Rock beer, banana splits and a host of other notables that made great ice breakers for Manhattan editors who were happy to take a look at stories included in the gift bags from “That Latrobe guy.”

In Manhattan I was that Latrobe guy. In Latrobe, I was just another guy.

But I grew to cherish the designation. Because I became pals with other Latrobe guys and some if them were giants. I had regular lunches with men like Vince Quatrini Sr., Ned Nakles Sr. Dennis Rafferty, and Mike and Terry Ferguson. We’d line up at the bar  at Baldonieri’s, the conversation often directed by Holly Baldonieri (now Holly Rutter Bush, incidentally one of my favorite “local” authors).

Now, many small towns can boast an austere line-up of bright leading citizens. I contend what makes Latrobe unique is the quality of our goofballs and misfits. They’re profane, witty, profound and capable of brilliant outbursts of confounding intellect that add volatile color to every conversation. They can be rude, crass, belligerent and leave you wondering how the same town that raised Fred Rogers could have produced these jackasses.

It’s why some visitor or new resident eager to make a flattering impression will mistakenly gush that “everyone here in Latrobe is just so nice.”

“If you think that about everyone in Latrobe,” I say ominously, “then you haven’t met everyone in Latrobe.”

It’s why I’m bracing myself for the ribbing I’m bound to endure when word gets around that Latrobe Bulletin readers voted me “Latrobe’s Favorite Local Author.”

Friends will wonder if there’s even a runner-up, if I voted for myself and the tally was me, 1, and “other,” nothing, etc.

That’s not fair to the many, many talented writers who struggle with priorities and yearn, like I still do, for a commercial or critical breakthrough that will justify all their dreams.

Joke all you want. I couldn’t be more pleased by the declaration. You know, at one time Arnold Palmer was likely The Bulletin readers’ “Favorite Local Golfer.” 

The vote count isn’t what makes it special. The title is all it needs. So I say this with all due humility.

I’m, ahem, special.

But only because you’re special.

Two of my most popular books are offbeat bios of local legends — take a wild guess — Arnold Palmer and Fred Rogers.

You have no idea how lucky purely as a writer that makes me. I got to spend more than two years inside the heads of Fred and Arnold, two of the most monumental men in history. Men who coincidently happen to be perfect gentlemen, both lively, creative, fun and wise.

Many of you helped put me there. My stories are your stories. I only knew them (mostly) through you.

A writer — any writer — producing a portrait must immerse themselves in the lives of his or her subject or the paint will smear.

Try and imagine how different I would be if I lived in, say, a small Long Island town where the local writers seeking to capitalize on notoriety had to choose between Bernie Madoff and Joey Buttafuccuo. Or Jeffrey Dahmer.

I’d be coarser, darker, more cynical. A Beautiful Day in The Neighborhood?

More like a sinister one.

Check out the places that sell my books — and God bless ‘em! —Youngstown Grille, Eclectique, Pat’s Hair & Nail Place,  Latrobe Art Center, Greater Latrobe-Laurel Valley Chamber of Commerce, 512 Coffee & Ice Cream, Tin Lizzy (honorable mentions to neighbors in Ligonier and Greensburg, Second Chapter Books, DV8 Coffee and Barnes & Noble).

What do these places have in common?

They’re happy places where convivial folks go to do and enjoy things that nourish the soul.

And they welcome my books at these places.

So thank you, Latrobe Bulletin readers, for making me your Favorite Local Author.

And thank you, Latrobe, for making me the kind of writer worthy of the honor.