An End of the World Romance

Freytag Guntag and his wooing styles!

We may have carried on, but, in truth, the world ended on the 21st of May  2011. Now people didn't die, the earth didn't open into a gaping hole and swallow us, and it really wasn't as dramatic as it is on TV. Little changed. PBS is gone, so is NPR, and the Pirates are winning. There is one major drawback, and that is, that there are some noxious gases floating about that can cause:

• Abdominal pain
• Blurred vision
• Constipation
• Diarrhea
• Dizziness
• Headaches
• Loss of appetite
• Memory loss
• Improved Memory
• Palpitations
• Bradycardia
• Problems with coordination
• Ringing in the ears
• Deafness
• Skin rashes or hives
• Swelling of hands or feet
• Syncope (loss of consciousness or fainting)
• and Death

MONA

  Freytag Guntag a man chronically in love, and savvy to the May 21 situation, created a social networking sight dedicated to reconnecting post doomsday romantics. He called it Amore Apocalyptica. His plan was to repopulate the earth, but mostly, he wanted to find a date. You see comrades, this man, in his past life was hideous. He had pimples since birth and a beard too. The beard and the rest of his hair, fell out at the onset of puberty. This gasmask fashion would prove beneficial to Freytag Guntag. Or so he thought. The website was an instant hit. The mighty Yinzers took to the streets and cafes of the city. Suddenly everyone had dates, people were promiscuous, and happy. Everyone except Freytag Guntag of course.  His drought had turned to a cracked earth famine. Initially he tried adding flare to his gas mask. He painted flames on the sides, he added glitter, and a sticker of his favorite band. Unfortunately for him, flames were not popular, glitter was not manly, and respectable man of middle age or earth listened to the Strokes. He had no idea what he was doing wrong. Then he one morning he received an instant message.

MARCELLA

You need to brush up your profile. Try writing something like: "I like hot dogs and apple pie" Instead of, "I like slappin that ass." And for dislikes try, "I dislike intolerance" instead of, "I dislike fat bitches." Oh and for attributes, you should tell us something nice about your personality, not, "I'm part horse from the waist down."                  Hope this helps.                                                                                    -Marcella

He put some thought into it and just like that his luck changed. He had more dates than he had time. He went with Mona to the planetarium. The Allegheny River with Megan to catch mutated turtles for dinner, and countless other dates. 

Life was good. 

MEGAN

MARLA

MIRANDA

Marla, Miranda, Megan. He never did find Marcella again. His many messages of thank you, and appreciation went unanswered. Eventually, Freytag Guntag had a family. He could never thank Marcella enough, hiding the fact that he was indeed horse from the waist down proved beneficial to him in passing on his genes. Nobody likes a braggart, but centaurs weren't exactly chick magnets either. 

   

Wilhelm: the Head in the Trashcan

Dearest Comrades!

My father was a wise man. He often bestowed bits of philosophy that remain present in my mind to this day.  He said, "Don't trust anyone! Not even yourself. This world is a festering hole of shit. Remember that time you gave that mechanic 500 dollars up front to overhaul your engine, and he disappeared, you called him for weeks, and you never heard from him again? You see that confirms my philosophy. Especially the part about don't trust yourself! I can't believe you would do such a stupid thing. Money up front! Or what about when you gave that guy with the bible on the dashboard of his volkswagon Jetta $1000 up front to paint your house, and he did the same thing! He drove off and went to the Red Parrot to watch the naked ladies dance on stage to "Sweet child o' mine" I know because he bought me a drink. Don't trust yourself, son, especially not yourself!"As you can imagine, this conversation left my mind in a tailspin. That is until I came upon a trashcan in the distance.  There was nothing extraordinary about it, I watched it the entire time as I passed, suddenly, I noticed two eyes looking out. It was a head resting peacefully in a trashcan. Before I could escape I heard a calm voice calling from behind me. "Do you want to live?" I looked back, but found nothing but the trashcan.

Ahem! I heard the voice call. He repeated the question. When I answered he responded: Nothingness! I didn't see how this could get my money back from the mechanic, nor how it would get the guy with the bible on his dashboard to paint my house. I did not! The head's name was Wilhelm, and he spoke, "Ask for it." Wilhelm was somber as the words came slowly from his mouth. As if he knew what I would say before  I could. I can't ask the mechanic I said leaning over the trashcan to catch a better glimpse of the head. "Then do not ask the Mechanic." But the Guy with the Bible on the dashboard of his Jetta is nowhere to be found. 

"Then do not ask the Guy with the Bible on the Dashboard of his Jetta." This was when Wilhelm revealed the truth. Everything is nothingness, he told me. You must start off by hanging out around a hospital. Approach the first person you see that is smoking. If you have a cell phone, speak on it until you are close enough so that the other person can hear you. Then hang up and ask them for a cigarette. Tell them you do not smoke. Not usually. Then start off by saying you're from Morgantown.  City people are not always from the city, and one of their ancestors may have been from a small town such as that. It creates a bridge to catharsis. When Wilhelm said catharsis his eyes doubled in size. He may have said CATHARSIS! It is the key to money. You also have to tell them you have a job, a good union job. If you're a guy you're a professor or a flight attendant if you're a female. Then go on. 

You see my daughter has to get a heart transplant done, and I just got in to visit her. Unfortunately I parked in _____(insert name of dangerous neighborhood here) and they broke into my car and stole my wallet. I had no idea. But the worst part is that they stole the copies of her CT scan and I need to drive back home to get the others. Can I borrow $45 to get some diesel fuel so that I may drive home? Offer to take down their number so that you may call them later in order to return the money.  Give them your number in turn. People want to help, and they think that a phone number can be traced.  The wise Wilhelm carried on. To be honest I made five hundred back in a few short weeks. One day, comrades, I will buy a car of my own. I returned weeks later to thank the illustrious Whilhelm. Alas! He was nowhere to be found.

The Garden of Failed Robots

Dearest, Comrades!
This may also go under the name, "Things built by felons on community service." Alas! I am a romantic and below is the true tale.

Before the Carnegie Mellon Department of Robotics, before Star Trek and Star Wars, there was the Homestead Strike of 1892. Between the Carnegie Steel Company and the Amalgamated Association of Steelworkers (the AA). The Carnegie Steel Company would win the battle, kill off many workers, stifle union efforts, and ultimately morph into the Robotics Institute. While the Amalgamated Association of Steelworkers would morph into a support group for alcoholics. 

Hey Kids meet: Ass-barrel the Alligator

The strike itself would last only a month, but what would occur in that short time period would forever change the world.  Mr. Carnegie realized that union labor had the distinct inconvenience of being run by humans. Humans, they had to eat, had to sleep, had to love; humans,  he felt, would be a thing of the past, and so he hired someone to make that change. Lacrimus S. Vulcan PhD.  

Hey Kids meet: Tikitus the Roman Tiki-Robot

Dr. Lacrimus, a somber man, with chronic tears, and sulking ambiance, worked day and night.  He insisted upon working alone, and ran off any and all who approached. Dr. Lacrimus would create metal people to carry on the endless works man refused to do. His previous projects were the Alligator barrel, wound with cogs and wheels, and armed with a giant saw-like tail to guide him through the water from the oil tankers and back again.  Unfortunately, he forgot to give the alligator a head and eyes, so that it may look and see. Many swimmers were chopped to bits in the Allegheny, and many a tanker was sunk by this paddling, oil-filled torpedo.  Then he planted sprockets and tried to grow one from the ground, but plants were never great walkers. That one was a complete failure.

 Hey Kids Meet: Headless Robot Hockeystick Arm Man

His one success, came after the strike was lifted and the money had run dry. He created a robot much like himself. This metal person could talk and follow some primitive commands.  Dr. Lacrimus being low on funds used a turbine ventilator he had removed from a house. The good doctor rejoiced at his creation, and rushed home to call his boss. While he was out the angry owner of the turbine took back what was his.
After that, Lacrimus made other attempts, each more bold, and daring than the other, all were met with defeat, including the flying house, which plummeted thirty stories through the sky, crushing himself, and his workshop. All that remains is a tiny garden in Garfiled On black street  between N. Fairmount and Chislett. It is my understanding that many children have lost digits here.      

The Turkey House, originally named the Spectacular Flying House, but renamed so after its devastating failure!

The Maiden Flag and the Baker's Tears

In Bloomfield at Sapphire and Liberty, long, long ago, there was a baker. Baker Amato, whose muffins, were dry, whose toast, was bland, and whose cookies were harder than stones. They were so hard in fact that Baker Amato broke his rolling pin and spoon at least once, on a weekly basis. The baker would send his wife, Pasqualina Pingolo, to buy him yet another spoon, and yet another rolling pin. As he had done the week before, and the week before that.
Pasqualina Pingolo walked out into the windiest of days. Her apron flapped wildly as she walked along to the supermarket. Suddenly a gust of wind lifted her off of her feet and carried her down Liberty avenue. Pasqualina Pignolo reached out and grabbed onto the stoplight, but the wind did not stop. It continued to blow, and spin around her. The Fire Chief saw her dangling from the stoplight and asked one of his men to, "Quick! Go get that baker that makes the shitty cookies that broke all our teeth! Run!" Pasqualina Pingolo's fingers began to slip. They slipped one inch at a time. When Baker Amato arrived it was too late. Pasqualina flew off into the Pittsburgh sky. She swirled, and swooshed leaving only her apron, spoon, and rolling pin behind.
Baker Amato hung his head and returned to his shop. He baked no more stone cookies, and leavened no more bland dough, his muffins were not heard from for weeks. There was no peep, nor no light from the Amato bakery. Until one day the man woke up to find himself elbows deep in a bowl full of batter. He was sleep-baking again. Realizing this he began to cry. Buckets of salty tears poured onto the table and into the bowl. He sobbed and howled the entire night and morning. He sobbed when he turned on the oven, he even sobbed when he turned it off.  Everyone in the neighborhood could hear the noise within, and they gathered around to see what the ruckus was about. They could smell the deliciousness, and as the scent travelled further and further, more and more people came to see where it was coming from. Baker Amato hadn't even looked outside. But when he finally did, he opened the doors to let everyone in. His muffins were no longer dry, but moist and fluffy. His toast disappeared from the countertops, and not one person chipped a tooth on his cookies. The crowd was so pleased by the baker's job that they stampeded to the store every morning. They say that if you stop in just after midnight, you might still hear the baker crying into his dough.

Massacre in the Cathedral: The Hell Button

 In Japanese folklore there is a demon. Jigoku Shoujo. Who specializes in vengeance; to obtain this, all you had to do was go to the temple, write the name of the person you wanted to get revenge on, and nail it to the announcement board.  Shortly thereafter the demon would appear, give you a tiny straw man with a string tied around his neck, and when you pulled the string said person would be banished to hell. Unfortunately, when you died, you would go to hell too. Let's say you get pissed off real bad at someone; like a kid getting pissed at his parents cause they grounded him and he can't use the Nintendo, or you get bullied, or someone breaks up with you and you're devastated, or a veterinarian doesn't save your pet dog because he wants to go golfing instead. Let us say one of the above occurs and your pissed. Some one did _____________ and you're pissed, and you want to exact a cruel revenge upon them.  In the land of the rising sun (that is Japan, and no it is not in Mexico), you call Jigoku Shoujo. In the Burgh, there is a hell button in the Cathedral of Learning.

There are three men living in the stairwell in the Cathedral of Learning. Bigelow Bill was the most visible of the three. He was helping the others nurse diabetic ulcers, and often times he was sent out to find food and remedies. I know this, because I jog everyday up and down that flights of stairs. This morning on my jog I saw a hand. It was dangling through the wrought iron bars of the handrails. I tell you my comrades I am usually the type to never get involved in such chicanery. Obviously it was a dead woman as you can imagine. Unfortunately she died between the 11th and the 12th floors. She died, in fact, at the exact middle point. As you can see this proves to be a severe dilemma. Which floor is responsible? Is it the Hispanic languages department? Is it Slavic languages? I mean there are some floors with at least two or three departments. Does the door closest to the stairwell take the dead?
I am unsure if you are aware, but I am a chronic rule-follower. It took every ounce of strength and will power for me to step over the body and continue on. However two flights later I came across another young woman strewn about in the exact same spot. She was expired. Pale, rigor, dead. Worst of all was her term paper. I read it, I find it best that she died when she did. The paper was ungraded, and with her death maybe some other piece of work will be used to remember her by.  I am hoping she was a good dancer, or weightlifter.
This woman died somewhere between philosophy, and classics. This time I could not get away. Bigelow Bill appeared, he appeared to hop like a tiny bird, coy at first, but then he begged me for assistance. I asked him, "How now Bigelow Bill, what have you there in your the hand behind your back?" He told me had seen the hell button. He said he saw it work too. He did not push the button, but was more like a witness. These are the honest words of Bigelow Bill:
Bobby Bogart was popular with the women. What he was not was popular with, was everybody else.  Dangling-Arm girl pressed the hell button to get rid of Shitty-Term-Paper girl. Then Bobby Bogart pressed it to get rid of Dangling-Arm girl.
Bigelow Bill requested that I be a character witness, for when he went on trial. I believe this to be on account of him having to go door-to-door to tell people he's moving in. But notwithstanding,  I conceded his request. It did not matter. Bigelow Bill was taken into custody and tried for the murder of both young ladies and Bobby Bogart. Apparently undergraduates are a great source of protein, and can aid in the recovery of Diabetic ulcerations.

As for the Hell-Button my delicious little comrades, go to the cathedral. It is located right by the elevator next to the computer sciences or engineering or some kind of machine based departement.  If you seek vengeance upon a veterinarian, or something of the sort, you must search there.

The Tragic Story of John Nephew

There is this house. This is a house where bad happens. Sometimes on a regular basis, sometimes on the weekends, but mostly like all the time. Violence is so commonplace in fact, that in this house, when someone asks you to take out the garbage they really mean, "Please take the dead body in the trunk to the pig farm." And when they ask you,  "Please take the dead body in the trunk to the pig farm." They really mean, "Would you mind sorting the garbage for recycling, it's monday."

We found this out after John Nephew met Rosa Rosa. It was really after she met him. Rosa Rosa was the youngest and only daughter of a three brother family. She always looked sleepy, and since her mother wouldn't let her wax her face, she wore a light blonde mustache above her upper lip. 

Her brothers didn't like anybody dating Rosa Rosa, but the worst thing you could do was not date Rosa Rosa. Especially if she wrote you poems, or baked you cakes.
Her three brothers were the toughest guys in the world, they had mustaches since the sixth grade. There names were William, Carlos, and Williams. They watched John Nephew from the window with guns in their hands, as Rosa Rosa followed him around below.  If he went to the park, she went to the park, and if they were both at the park, William, Carlos, and Williams would all stand at their windows and watch them with their rifles and their pajamas. They could see into the park, they could see into alleys, into stores, through walls, and they could even see into your soul! Sometimes they watched John Nephew from inches away. He could smell the air from their lungs they were so close. If he was on the corner, they were on the corner, and if they were on the corner Rosa Rosa was following them so that she could get on the corner too. You get the point.
Rosa Rosa threw pebbles at his window until four sometimes five in the morning, and when she was done throwing pebbles William, Carlos and Williams did it until Rosa Rosa woke up and came back to start again. John Nephew never slept. And when he would try to hide, the brothers would find him with their X-ray vision.  



The day John Nephew asked me to help build him a lead suit, I could see the suffering in his eyes.  He had a patch of grey hair I named Rosa Rosa, and his teeth were yellow from all the coffee he started drinking. Oddly, the suit worked out just fine. William, Carlos and Williams never found him again. Rosa Rosa left him alone, and he could finally go to sleep. Unfortunately, the first thing he did was go to sleep in the park. Subsequently there was an immediate downpour of rain. The suit was too heavy for him and Rosa Rosa was not around to help him up. He drowned.
Rumor has it that William, Carlos and Williams stand out at their windows waiting for John Nephew to come home.
Their house was at the corner of Ella and Friendship ave, you should see it for yourself my Comrades!

Randy's Mom

I'm not gonna say his last name. Most of you will 

know, at least those of you that should, just cause it's virtually impossible to not know Randy's mom.  I don't mean know like bang, or sex, I mean know, like she's everywhere. The first time I found her she was standing out in front of Sonny's tavern, collecting smoked cigarettes and bottle caps. 

Randy told me, in faith, that if you were gentle and kind she might open a beer for you. "It's a bar trick," he said, "Men used to pay cabaret fees to watch the bottles come undone." He said it like adolescent twins tell you they still shower together. Like eight year-olds with seven brothers and sisters watch their mother's labor while eating jelly-filled donuts.
Nonetheless, the beer I drink comes mostly in cups, and when I can afford a bottle she's never around. The other boys started going on about how she used her teeth, neck, and elbow to open a brew, sometimes all at once. I decided that I would search her out.  I didn't have to go far.

I found her in front of Sonny's tavern.  She was in the same place, like always, just waiting. 

Her preferred beer is Iron City,
but with this she'll make due

Randy's mom coughed and hacked as she cleared her throat. Then she reached out for the first bottle. Oddly, she and Randy had the same hands. I wasn't sure whether her's were gruff and manly, or if his were girly and dainty. She reminded me more and more of Randy. Like she grew a beard before my eyes. I wondered if I'd ever be able to look the boy in the eyes again. Or how the guys that saw her open the bottle with her whole body did so as well. I knew then that they were lying. Cause what I saw was worth a punch in the mouth from any son. Randy's mom warmed the bottle with both her hands. She stopped all eye contact as she prepared herself. Like a gymnast set to mount a pommel horse. By then, she had morphed into her boy standing there with a long stringy head of hair, and some dirty flip flops.  I didn't look away, and I'm not gonna say exactly how or where she opened the bottle, because you'll have to see it for yourself. I'll tell you this, I never could tell Randy that I saw his mom's show. If you don't believe me, you can visit her in front of Sonny's tavern. On Saturdays she's not there until after 6pm.

La Mère du Randy by unknown artist

The Destructo Button

I was going to the Trader Joe's, and as I waited for the Mr. Walk to appear on the crosswalk, I noticed this sign where the stoplight pole was. I hesitated instead of pressing the button. The light did not change. The cars drove by, without heeding my attempts to step out into the street. People approached the crosswalk, other people, saw the sign, and continued on. They jaywalked. They certainly did not press the button, though. This is not a joke.  There is a Giant Eagle, a Trader Joe's and a Target. An explosion of this magnitude could ungentrify the whole of East Liberty. Imagine a hole from Bakery square to the empty building where Borders used to be, to Whole foods even.  I'm not joking.  This is serious.  Would you like to see a thousand hipsters flying through the Pittsburgh skies mixed with Quinoa and worm composte? I wonder how long it's been there. One day? One month? A year? Even if it was there a day I'm pretty impressed. Cause a city that could destroy the world with the touch of a button is one that I would like to live in.

I mean the Yinzer don't even care. They walk by it like it was a bus sign. I don't, not yet. If you're ever pissed you could like go there and just pretend like you could end the world. You could stand there and be like the Kids in the Hall guy that would lead them through a winding stair case, and then up through an attic passage to only squish their heads between his fingers, and when they would get pissed, you could threaten them not to come closer.
In Shitsburgh the Destructo Button is for threat only.
I mean we are pretty lucky to finally have a Trader Joes.


It's at the corner of Penn and Shady ave. If you're ever pissed, you know.

I Love Shitsburgh

As per the Urban Dictionary:

1.	shitsburgh
	a nickname for the shittiest city in the world, pittsburgh PA. if it weren't for the steelers, nobody would've even heard of this place Teacher: "Name the two major cities in Pennsylvania." Student: "Well we all know that Philadelphia is one, but what's the other? Is it...Shitsburgh?"

This is a blog about the notorious city, through the eyes of a Texan.

The term Shitsburgh was invented by one Sienna Miller while filming Mysteries of Pittsburgh. http://www.blackbookmag.com/article/with-help-from-peter-sarsgaard-sienna-miller-addresses-shitsburgh-controver/7084