Pittsburgh
Coup d’État of MusicOn With Musikoff
My pal Brian Musikoff hosts a weekly show on radionope.com. Tonight I conducted a hostile takeover, playing an hour of artists that I associate with Pittsburgh. At this link you can see the playlist and stream or download the episode.
Goodnight P.T. Barnum
This weekend, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus announced that after 146 years, they’d be folding up the tents and coming to town no more. It was pretty shocking news to see. The circus just seemed like one of those forever things. But I guess forever ain’t what it used to be. When I […]
Movie Review: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
3 stars out of 5 For recent vintage coming-of-age movies set in Pittsburgh, Adventureland (2009) is—in my not-so-humble opinion—far and away the best. Coming in second: 2012’s The Perks of Being of a Wallflower. Taking the bronze from the Iron City? Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. In a nutshell, our teenage protagonist befriends […]
Help Karl Hendricks
I knew the other 2/3 of the Karl Hendricks Trio—but who exactly was Karl? Drummer Tom Hoffman was a great pal from English classes at CMU; bassist Tim Parker was a really nice guy who I knew from WRCT. But Karl… hmmm…. Sure, I had the 7″ from his band Sludgehammer. Yet I don’t think […]
It Was 20 Years Ago Today
Kurt Cobain took his own life on April 5, 1994, but we didn’t learn the news until Friday, April 8. Can you imagine that today, three days passing? No distraught tweet from Courtney Love? No Instagram of the body from an assistant coroner, whose account is taken down the next day? It was bad enough […]
Movie Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
3.5 stars out of 5 This is a pretty good movie that maybe could’ve been a terrific movie with a little intervention and pruning. It’s based on some best-selling young-adult book that I never heard of. The screenplay was written by the author, and for good measure, he directed it too. Hey, look at me, […]
Could You Make It Out to Jack?
“[Random public figure] replied to my Tweet!” gushed an otherwise austere friend. Socioeconomic levels be damned—there’s a bit of starf*cker in us all. These days, the methods of choice seem to be: • the aforementioned realm of social media, and • if we actually encounter a celebrity in person, a photo—due to the fact that […]
Barbers I Have Known
A friend, having returned from the hairdresser, told me, “You’re lucky you’re a boy. You can get your hair done in five minutes for five bucks.” True enough. But it’s not to say that a special bond can’t develop between a boy and his barber. The shop itself is a special world of masculinity, celebrated […]
Jack Silbert, curator