The good, the bad & and the Springsteen show

(1020 words)

You’d think by now I’d know better than to try and make even a modest profit from spare tickets to a marquee event. It only, for me at least, leads to costly misery.

You may remember I’m one of the few men or women on Earth who’s been arrested for trying to scalp/dump pre-season Steeler tickets for $25 less than face value (see below).

What happened again Tuesday prior to the Bruce Springsteen concert was maybe just as bad.

And the wound is too fresh and too deep for me to detail all that happened just yet. Partly because I’m trying to drive the details from my mind and partly because there’s a chance my wife might read this and inflict a less metaphorical sort of fresh, deep wound that might hurt me in places more tangible than my soul.

One of my favorite Martin Luther King Jr. quotes is about how evil cannot be driven out; it must be crowded out. It means we need to ensure the good outnumbers the bad.

King was talking about things like racial injustice, civil strife and historic inequities tearing at the very fabric of our nation.

I’m talking about things like outrageous ticket service fees, unbending guest relations personnel and the inhuman outrage of $12 domestic beers.

But there was so much good that happened that night I’m going to stack it up in a pile so that one day I can be an example to you about overcoming my sort of adversity.

First of all Quinn came to town. I have friends who bitch about me writing about Quinn too much, but seeing Quinn is always eventful and his presence is too tumultuous to ignore.

This was the third time Quinn and I have paired up to see a Springsteen show either here or in his hometown Columbus.

It’s no exaggeration to say I’d rather see Quinn than Springsteen, and not just because it would save me a fortune. See, Quinn’s one of those guys for whom the Springsteen seats can’t be close enough.

I’m convinced if we’d scored floor seats and wormed our way up so our chins were resting on the stage right by the Boss’s boots, he’d say, “Look! There’s some space up there on Roy Bittan’s piano bench. I’ll bet he’d let us sit there next to him!”

Our tickets, the source of so much contention, were in the first row of the balcony behind the stage. For Quinn that was really bad, but using MLK’s logic I’m going to crowd out his bad and bury it with my good.

Good because I thought the view was fine and because if we hadn’t sat there we never would have met the guy from Buffalo who drives all around the country to see Springsteen. That’s not uncommon. What is uncommon is to have brought along and purchased tickets for this two children, ages 7 and 5, so they could see Bruce too. They said their favorite albums are “The Rising” and “Wrecking Ball” respectively. They both snoozed through the last half of the show.

This was really good because with one of the spare tickets I’d considered taking my 13-year-old Josie, but decided against it for many sensible reasons some Buffalo fathers choose to ignore. So now I have more evidence that I’m a really good Dad, which I’ll bring up the next time I do anything really bad.

 The show got off on a sort of bad note when he opened with an odd Clash cover of “Working on the Clampdown.” But that bad was buried with so much more good that was the rest of the show. Bruce just keeps getting better and better. We’re really lucky to have him.

It was bad when Quinn told me he heard Springsteen flies home on a private jet every night after every single show. It jarred with his working guy image. It just seems so imperial. Who does he think he is? Bruce Springsteen?

But the possibility let us enjoy a lot of fun speculation, like does he allow his bandmate/wife Patti Scialfa fly home, too, or does he make her bus it with the band?

And it was really good when during his “Hungry Heart” crowd surf some artistic genius gave him the most remarkable balloon creation I’ve ever seen (that’s a Star-Ledger picture above). It was a Springsteen balloon. I like to think he took it with him on the plane and maybe buckled it into the co-pilot’s seat.

There were many goods to our lodging arrangements. We stayed across the Monongahela River at the Holiday Inn Express on the South Side. It’s probably less than a mile walk through the Armstrong Tunnels to Consol Energy Center. It was very convenient, plus when the show was over we were free to prowl the booze-soaked South Side. We closed Primanti’s and then headed to Jack’s for last call there.

It was good when we met a really pretty stripper who’d just put her clothes back on after dancing the night naked down at a nearby gentleman’s club. She had really long blonde hair that she kept flinging around when she laughed — and she laughed a lot — so it made her face look like it was proceeding through a car wash.

She was really fun and sweet and the whole time I kept thinking, man, I hope no one here proposes anything that while providing momentary entertainment, could lead to many very bad results that Quinn would find more humorous than would, say, my wife.

We said good night.

So it was a great night. Lots of fun. The show was fantastic and today I consider myself blessed to have a soft, supple mind agile enough to let me think about all the good instead of all the bad that happened with the ticket fiasco, which one day years from now I’m sure I’ll share.

But adding up all the dough and reconsidering the sad spare ticket debacle is just something I’m not up today.

That would be really too bad.

Related . . .

I had the right to remain silent; arrested again

The ‘12 Springsteen show and when music still mattered

Jump hugs with dangerous drunks

MLK: A tough day for racists

My wild and wussy weekend

Re-run Sunday: Me for Pittsburgh Mayor

By happiest of coincidences, I had the opportunity to write a love letter to Pittsburgh on the same weekend my buddies from New York came to town to whoop it up and watch the Steelers play the New England Patriots.

National Geographic Traveler named Pittsburgh one of the top must-visit places in the world, and one of just four cities (the others being London, Belfast and Dresden). That's heady praise for a city that ought to be getting used to it.

So I'm re-running the story I posted from their 2010 visit and moving on to what will amount to a re-run of last year's festivities.

The Pittsburgh story should run Monday or Tuesday on msnbc.com and I'll re-post it here.

Enjoy your Sunday!

I was reminded again this weekend that one of these days I really should get around to running for mayor of Pittsburgh.

Really, I can’t imagine anyone doing a better job of showing off the city.

I do it all the time, but this past weekend’s always my Pittsburghpalooza. It’s when I have about a dozen buddies come to town to watch a Steeler game.

They’re true New Yorkers. They love the Big Apple, as do I. But to a man (and a woman or two), they rave about Pittsburgh, its restaurants, its views, its teams and all it has to offer.

One of them, a New York limo driver to A-list stars, says if he ever wins the lottery, he’s not moving to the Caribbean. He’s moving to Pittsburgh.

He means it.

And, ahem, that’s mostly because of me. I know the city well enough to entertain them by taking them places only the most convivial locals know.

Over the past 10 years, they’ve made friends with bartenders at Penn Brewery, Roland’s, Jack’s, the Original Oyster House and dozens of dives too notorious for decent folk to patronize.

We’ve dined at LeMont, Monterrey Bay, Vincent’s Pizza, Jo-Jo’s, Sonoma Grill and on Saturday had a wonderful meal at Six Penn Kitchen, one of the city’s best.

They’ve relaxed by the out-of-the-way shower fountain that runs beneath the convention center, enjoyed river jaunts on the Gateway Clipper and drank in the magnificent view of the Golden Triangle from atop Mt. Washington.

As mayor, I’d have key to the city advantages and a wider reach to promote the city I love.

I’m sure in one term, I could have people around the world talking about Pittsburgh like they do Paris.

First off, I’d need to get Pittsburghers as excited about the city as I am. Right now, they are not. They take it for granted.

Here’s what I’d do to change that and get everyone on the same page. I understand some of this might be extreme, but it would benefit city business establishments, tax revenues and city psyches. Alas, even Pittsburgh has its share of fun-resistant people. They need to be dragged into the party for their own good.

Feel free to apply these to your own home cities. Most of them can work anywhere.

• Randomly close the bridges and city exits for 48 hours every couple of months. This is what corporate types call team building. It did wonders for the Chilean miners and none of them had access to great restaurants, taverns, entertainment and lodging. Lock people in the city for 48 hours and employees who flee for the suburbs every night would be forced to take advantage of the recreational opportunities available downtown.

• Turn the West End Bridge into the famous “Coathanger” bridge over Sydney Harbor. No pedestrians ever go near the most scenic bridge in the city. Crossing the Ohio River and looking directly back at the Golden Triangle, the soaring West End Bridge resembles the famous Australian landmark that’s a magnet for BridgeClimb tourists. It would be an easy engineering feat to construct stairs over the arch and would provide one of the most dynamic tourist vistas in all America. Heck, put a restaurant on top of the bridge while you’re at it.

• Mandatory 35 hour work weeks. This isn’t to ensure underemployed people work more. It’s to ensure over-employed big shots work less. People who work 60 or more hours a week are often our most affluent. We don’t need these people working late and going home exhausted. We need them in the bars buying drinks for underemployed guys like me.

• Declare eminent domain on Bob Nutting’s office and throw him the hell out of it. There is no greater civic shame than the sad and enduring state of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The city’s crown jewel is lovely PNC Park, a baseball diamond so luscious it’s become a top spot for picky brides seeking elegant wedding venues. A competitive Pirate team and sell out crowds televised nationwide would do more for the city’s image than four dozen conventions.

• Student discounts at every restaurant every Friday. Pittsburgh’s home to many great university’s, including Pitt, Carnegie Mellon, Duquesne and Point Park (where I’ve been flattered to teach kids about commas). Students from all over the country come to these schools. We need to ensure they graduate and stay.

• Mandatory shifts at Primanti’s for everyone. It’s our landmark restaurant, the one with the sandwiches with the fries and slaw right on the bun. It’s perfectly Pittsburgh. If everyone had to work at least one shift there, they’d understand the essence of the city and people who call it home. Plus, guaranteed, it’d be a lot of fun.

• Trash collection contests. Every city could benefit from a program that required residents to pick up the trash they stumble over on the sidewalks. Have attendants at handy collection sites dispense restaurant coupons for people who pick up the most trash.

• Balance the budget by auctioning off the opportunity to do chores for Mario Lemieux. Guaranteed, there a lot of guys in town who’d be willing to pay $100 to brag they got to take Mario’s trash out to the curb.

• Homeless guy “Survivor.” Every single office of big shots must adopt a homeless person and make a project of turning their lives around with the goal of finding him or her a job and place to live. The office squad that succeeds in conducting the most remarkable transformation in six months gets free weekends at one of our city’s fine hotels.

• Anyone taking public transportation must take turns leading the other passengers in song. City buses and subways are unnecessarily grim. It wouldn’t be so if everyone had to sing a couple of stanzas of their favorite tunes.

• When he’s not running the Pittsburgh Steelers, Mike Tomlin runs everything else. There’s no more charismatic motivator than Coach Tomlin. I’d like to see how PennDOT construction workers fared after one weekend of exposure to the carrot and stick Tomlin so deftly applies to the Steelers.

Plus, with Tomlin running Pittsburgh, I’d be free to do what I do best.

Go out and just enjoy it.

Why I'll always give to the homeless

I could see the driver behind me shaking his head in a slow scold as I lowered the power window to hand the homeless guy a $5.

I was crawling through traffic in my Saturn Vue. The guy behind was turtleing along in an Escalade. The homeless guy was freezing his bony ass off begging alongside a Pittsburgh parkway. Guaranteed, either of our vehicles would have seemed like The Ritz to the bearded bum.

Had the situation been different, I might have enjoyed a philosophical discussion with Escalade about the virtues of giving to homeless people. It’s rare I come to any argument by way of the moral high ground, and I’ve heard and vanquished all the arguments against giving.

Tell me he’s just going to spend it on booze and I’ll ask if you’d prefer he run out and buy a new tie. Chances are good I’ll spend the same five on beers with buddies, too.

Say I’d be better off giving the money to a homeless shelter and I’ll say I do that, too.

Argue that studies show I may be perpetuating his homelessness with my handouts and I’ll point out anecdotes that refute those studies.

For the past few years whenever I’m likely to encounter a homeless person, I always lunch someplace where I can order tasty takeout wrapped to go for the first homeless person I see. This is particularly gratifying if I’m hungry for one of Pittsburgh’s famous Primanti’s cheese steak sandwiches.

It’s a tremendous treat (meat, slaw and fries on Italian bread) for those of us who have access to three hot meals a day. But giving one to a homeless person always reminds me of giving Christmas presents to 2 year olds. They can’t comprehend the why of the situation. They’re just overjoyed by the gesture.

The Bible says the ideal is to treat every homeless person as if they were Jesus Christ, Himself.

Well, for the love of God, that’s unrealistic. Am I supposed to flop down there on the sidewalk with him, hold my nose and -- Amen! -- wait for him start preaching? Should I take him home and give him tubby time after my daughters are done?

I suppose I could crucify him, but that’d likely to lead to controversy.

So I do what I can. I hand the guy a few bucks, look him right in the eye and say, “You hang in there, man.”

I have a slightly different perspective on giving to the homeless than most people for the simple reason that I know what it’s like to be homeless.

It was for a story about 10 years ago. I had to a day on a busy Pittsburgh sidewalk with a “Will Work for Food” sign. I spent a couple of weeks gruffing up, put on my filthiest duds and -- thinking I might as well have a little fun with it -- stationed myself right off the bus stop where my dear white-haired Mom used to go to work.

I’ll save that part of the story for another time. I will say Mom came through with some change, some motherly warnings about other territorial panhandlers, but ultimately no offer to let me move back home.

In all, I got a measly $23 over about 10 hours of sidewalk begging. What stayed with me is how utterly worthless people made me feel. I was polite. Friendly. I spent that whole stifling August day trying to make earnest eye contact with every passerby. Few did. Sure, it was a gag, but I couldn’t believe how few people would even acknowledge the presence of a fellow human being in struggling circumstances.

I suppose that day launched my trajectory of becoming a compassionate liberal who snorts at people who fail to understand the vast gulf between that mindset and the masquerade some call compassionate conservatism.

Now, the flip side of the story: I spent the next day in the exact same spot, same get-up, but this time with a sign that read, “Why Lie? Need Beer Money. Let’s Party!!!”

Strangers high-fived me. I had one cab driver stop, leave his vehicle and give me $5 while his smiling fare waved a thumb’s up from the back seat. All told, I made $89.75 in just five hours.

I don’t know why I dream of making lots of money because if I did, I’m fairly certain I’d give it all away.

Even in this time of uncertainty and struggle, I’ve got more than so many unfortunates ever will. And I could lose all I have and it wouldn’t matter one bit. I’m confident I’ll never endure hunger or want.

You see, I still have that sign.