Pittsburgh Current. Nov. 11, 2020. Volume 3, Issue 39

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Climate Crisis and Corrupt Politics By: Larry J. Schweiger Free Shipping Paperback $29.95 or purchase an eBook for $19.00 (Read the first 25 pages for free)

There is only one earth and our world is undergoing dramatic changes brought on by the climate crisis and other human-induced ecological disruptions. The world's top scientists studying these threats and the forces behind them have been warning us for decades to end the use of fossil fuels or face catastrophic consequences. Their long-ignored warnings have become more dire.

Larry Schweiger has long been on the front line of efforts to enact rational clean energy and climate policies and has witnessed efforts to undermine our democratic system that has been rigged leaving America hoodwinked and held hostage to dirty fuels.

Climate Crisis and Corrupt Politics pulls back the curtain on the central role of big oil, coal, and gas interests in American politics through the flow of money to fabricated entities for independent SuperPAC expenditures for mass deception through distorted advertising. Larry wrote this urgent message aimed at parents, grandparents and young adults who care about their children forced to live on the ragged edge of an unprecedented climate crisis. This book is especially for leaders who understand that we must act now with a "Green New Deal" scale response. Together, we must confront and overcome the many toxic money influences, reverse a failing democracy and retake the reins of government to enact policies that secure our shared future and the future of life on earth.

PITTSBURGH CURRENT | NOVEMBER 11, 2020 | 3

STAFF Publisher/Editor: Charlie Deitch Charlie@pittsburghcurrent.com

contents

Advisory Board Chairman: Robert Malkin Robert@pittsburghcurrent.com

Vol. III Iss. XXXIX Nov. 11, 2020

EDITORIAL

NEWS 6 | After the Election 8 | Celebrations and Protests

Music Editor: Margaret Welsh Margaret@pittsburghcurrent.com Visuals Editor: Jake Mysliwczyk Jake@pittsburghcurrent.com Sr. Contributing Writer: Jody DiPerna Jody@pittsburghcurrent.com Social Justice Columnist: Jessica Semler jessica@pittsburghcurrent.com

OPINION 12 | Larry Schweiger Arts 14 | Lily King 16 | Ryan Hoffman EXTRA 17 | Matthew Wallenstein 18 | Dan Savage 20 | Parting Shot

Contributing Photographer: Ed Thompson info@pittsburghcurrent.com Contributing Writers: Jody DiPerna, Atiya Irvin Mitchell, Dan Savage, Larry Schweiger, Brittany Hailer, Matthew Wallenstein, Caitlyn Junter, Aryanna Hunter, Nick Eustis, Jessie Sage, Mary Niederberger info@pittsburghcurrent.com

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The Fine Print The contents of the Pittsburgh Current are © 2020 by Pittsburgh Current, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No portion of this publication shall be duplicated or reprinted without the express-written consent of Pittsburgh Current LLC. One copy per person. The Pittsburgh Current is published twice monthly beginning August 2018.

The opinions contained in columns and letters to the editors represent the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Pittsburgh Current ownership, management and staff. The Pittsburgh Current is an independently owned and operated print and online media company produced in the heart of Pittsburgh’s Beechview neighborhood, 1665 Broadway Ave., Pittsburgh, PA., 15216. 412-204-7248.

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PITTSBURGH CURRENT | NOVEMBER 11, 2020 | 5

ELECTION 2020 PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATORS OF SOCIAL PROGRESS EVEN AFT

BY DANNYS MARRERO - PITTSBURG

On Saturday, just two hours after the Associated Press and a majority of major news outlets projected that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris captured the White House, hundreds of demonstrators marched through the City of Pittsburgh promising to continue the fight for progress.

“It’s not about a party,” said Brandi Fisher, one of the protest organizers and a member of the Alliance for Police Accountability. “We have had the Democrats for a very long time. We are not focused on party, we are focused on progressive people, we are focused on freedom and liberation.”

And although the timing was perfect, the march had been planned since Tuesday.

At 2 p.m., more than 100 demonstrators had already gathered in front of Representative Mike Doyle’s office in the South Side. The number only continued to grow with more than 250 demonstrators joining in as they started their march down East Carson Street and into Downtown Pittsburgh.

Before the group stepped off, however, State Representatives Summer Lee and Ed Gainey delivered powerful remarks promoting social change and acknowledged

the history made by Kamala Harris becoming the first woman of color to be elected Vice President.

At 2:11 p.m., Andraé Holsey, another organizer and member of ‘Progress for People of Color’ lead the cheerful crowd as they began their march chanting “there’s no power like the power of the people, because the power of the people don’t stop”.

“Accountability and integrity are values that we should see in every politician,” said Holsey. “The fight for racial equality doesn’t stop with one progressive candidate being put in office.”

The crowd marched peacefully without interruption, constantly growing and absorbing bystanders as well as other small demonstrations, like the one organized by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Once the demonstration occupied the intersection between South Tenth Street and East Carson Street, it had grown to over 400.

“Donald Trump’s supporters are white supremacists and they’re not going to stop fighting, so neither will I,” said Blake Billmaier, a Biden supporter who also agrees with the continuation of other similar demonstrations.

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Demonstrators march in Pittsburgh on Nov. 7. (Photo by Dannys Marrero)

ELECTION 2020 DEMAND THE CONTINUATION TER BIDEN& HARRIS TAKE OFFICE

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(Photo by Jake Mysliwczzyk)

At 3:26 p.m., the demonstration moved across the Tenth Street Bridge with a new destination in sight, the City-County Building on Grant Street.

They crossed the Tenth Street Bridge as many demonstrators held up “Black Voters Matter” signs and the chants shifted to well-known Black Lives Matter chants.

The large demonstration did reach its final destination at 3:54 p.m. and occupied the steps of the City-County Building. Many local black activists, like Chrissy Carter, took this time to deliver additional remarks and several calls-toaction to the crowd.

“There is still a lot of work to be done because the numbers don’t lie, almost nothing has been done in white communities,” said Carter, a member of ‘Take Action Mon-Valley’.

At 4:24 p.m., Fisher took the mic one last time and not only thanked the crowd for showing up but to remind everyone that local politics is just, if not more important than national races. The crowd cheered and left the Downtown area knowing that they still had a lot of work to do and that there are a handful of local organizations that will keep fighting.

PITTSBURGH CURRENT | NOVEMBER 11, 2020 | 7

NEWS

PA G E 7

SOME PENNSYLVANIANS CELEB REFUSE TO GIVE UP ON TR

BY NICK KEPPLER - PITTSBURGH C

O

n Saturday afternoon, following four days of anticipation, the state of Pennsylvania had finally been called for Joe Biden, seemingly ending the 2020 election.

Yet in the state’s capital of Harrisburg— two hours after news organizations deemed Joe Biden the president-elect — the conflict went on. A coalition of both leftwing activists celebrating Biden’s victory and a larger, louder throng of Donald Trump diehards pushing the president’s unsubstantiated claims of mass voter fraud, held dueling rallies on opposite sides of the Capital Complex.

On the capitol steps on North Third Street, the progressive groups Casa in Action and Capital Region Stands Up organized a demonstration against potential actions to stop vote counting in Pennsylvania, carrying signs reading, “Voters Decide” and displaying a banner reading: “Everyone Counts Count Everyone.” The event, planned when Trump first pressured the state to stop a

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vote count that grew more favorable, became a de facto celebration as Harrisburg residents with Biden-Harris signs and buttons joined in.

At the capital’s rear, on Commonwealth Avenue, a sea of familiar red hats waved Trump flags and newly made signs reading, “Stop the Steal.” The same three words were intermixed with chants of “U.S.A.” More people had guns on their belts than had masks on their faces.

The liberal crowd was city-permitted to start at noon; the Trump fans at 1 p.m. In the hour in between, the progressive activists looked down at a sea of Trump flags, hats and signs on the sidewalks and across the street, as the other contingency gathered. The two groups did not interact.

The news media had moved on to the era of President-elect Joe Biden.

Supporters danced in the streets of cities across the nation. In the micropolis in the heart of the perpetual battleground state, the battle continued.

A van circled the capitol complex, covered in

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Demonstrators rally for President Donald Trumpon the steps of the Pa. Capitol in

pro-Trump messaging.

“Joe Biden has got to go,” boomed a voice from a bullhorn. “Nancy Pelosi has got to go. Hilary Clinton has got to go” (four years after she’d more or less left the national stage.) At the same time, several vehicles

cruised through the capitol blasting rapper YG’s 2016 protest song “FDT.” Colleen Nguyen, 34, and Terra Shakespeare, 38, came to the “Count Every Vote” rally after an exhausting year in which Shakespeare, a first-time candi-

NEWS

BRATE BIDEN WIN WHILE OTHERS RUMP'S BIGGEST LIE OF ALL

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n Harrisburg. (Photo by Nick Keppler)

date for office, ran for the state house as a Democrat and Nguyen acted as her campaign manager. They tried to flip a Republican house seat in Cumberland County, near Harrisburg.

“Losing my race was not

what we planned but I was surprised by the number of people who were engaged and whose dream was to see Joe Biden win,” said Shakespeare.

Looking at the phalanx of Trump supporters, undaunt-

ed by the newly announced Trump loss, a few feet from them, Nguyen said, “I think they are delusional. I think they are sad and I think they have got reason to be.

They are losing their jobs.

Things haven’t been great

in this area.”

Some of Trump supporters seemed to taunt the liberal activists. One marched across the street waving a hulking Trump 2020 flag, larger than a garage door, for several minutes. Others just seemed to be confused as to where in the capital complex their crowd was.

At one point, salsa music played from the capitol steps and a man carrying an American flag walked away, telling his companion, “I don’t think Trump people would be playing Latin music.”

On the other side of the building, the “Stop the Steal” rally participants had taken the president’s cue alleging mass voter fraud.

A vendor was still making sales from a table loaded with “Women for Trump” and “Joe and the Hoe” signs (the hoe apparently being Vice President-elect Kamala Harris).

“How come when every goes to sleep Biden comes out ahead?” asked Chelsea Debbs, 37, of York, carrying a Trump flag. “I want the Supreme Court to overturn this and get the voting right.”

PITTSBURGH CURRENT | NOVEMBER 11, 2020 | 9

NEWS

PA G E 7 Continued From Page 8

A lion’s share of Biden’s votes were counted after Trump’s over the week.

Democrats had encouraged voters to vote by mail as a coronavirus precaution, and Trump insisted mail-in ballots would be illegitimate.

Many states — including the key battlegrounds of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — tallied in-person votes first and then moved on to mail-ins, which was the procedure for past elections. In 2020, they dealt with an explosion in mail-in votes and they were heavily Democrat, causing Trump’s margins to seem to shrink each day.

Or at least that’s the accepted explanation outside Trump’s base. The timeline sowed seeds of doubt and conspiracy for supporters, in what might be a preview of the comments sections rants and Thanksgiving table arguments of the next few years.

“I think based on the vote counts, it was fraudulent,” said John Fetchero, 37, of Cumberland, Maryland.

“They delayed the vote.

You went to bed and Trump was winning [in Pennsylvania] and then you wake up and they found 300,000 votes for Biden in the middle of the night.”

As of present, Biden leads Trump by four mil-

A supporter of Joe Biden faces off with a Trump follower. (Photos by Nick Keppler)

lion in the popular vote, with millions of votes yet to be counted, but in Fetchero’s eyes, “They always found just enough for him in every state,” he said.

He thinks state election officials should be the subject of mass investigations, particularly of their emails.

He doesn’t think sustained

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protests questioning the legitimacy of the election will harm the country.

“I think this has been a very peaceful interaction,” Fetchero added. “This is what the Constitution allows.”

Eric Johnston, a Trump supporter from Rockland County, New York, claimed that Pennsylvania elec-

tion results suspiciously changed when Trump was ahead. “Why would PA just stop counting and start counting again?” It wasn’t clear when he thought state officials stopped counting votes.

“I want to know the truth,” he said. “If there are inconsistencies, I want to know.”

NEWS

controlled by the progressive activists or one of the Trump buses.

“We’ll keep on fighting ’til the end….” sang the long-dead Freddie Mercury, his voice appropriated.

Which group would keep fighting to what end was lost in the commotion.

refrain of “Fuck Donald Trump, fuck Donald Trump, yeah nigga, fuck Donald Trump” from their ears, as it bounced out of another car window.

At one point, someone put on Queen’s “We Are the Champions,” a Trump rally favorite. It was unclear if it came from a sound system

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One man in a black hoodie carried a plastic lid to a bin with writing in black marker that read, “Standing back and standing by, Mr. President,” recalling Trump’s infamous message to the violent extremist group The Proud Boys at the first presidential debate. He declined to be interviewed.

Buses plastered with Trump flags and stickers parked along the capitol streets, one with a license plate from Ohio, another with a Montana plate.

Many Trump supporters clearly came from outside state borders and surrounded the smaller group gathered by local organizations calling for the vote counting to continue uninterrupt-

ed.

One car passed by the Trump crowd and the driver screamed, “Fuck you, you lost.” A woman with a Trump 2020 sign retorted, “Fuck you, you really lost.”

Several vehicles buzzed by the Trump supporters blaring YG’s “FDT.” The resident of an apartment overlooking the crowd on North Third Street blasted the same track.

One group including several small children walked through the boisterous capitol. A woman held a “PA Recount Sign” as a man wearing a Knights of Columbus jacket led them in a series of prayers beginning “Hail Mary, mother of grace…,” Their memorized recitations blocked YG’s

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OPINION

OVERCOMING FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTIONAL FLAWS

I

n 2016, the electoral college granted the Presidency to Trump, an unqualified reality show host who lost the popular vote by nearly three million votes.

Our outdated electoral system led to four long years of unparalleled malfeasance that contributed to thousands of Americans dying unnecessarily and millions more suffering during a deadly pandemic.

Trump cynically played the COVID-19 pandemic to his advantage by downplaying the risks while shifting the politically unpopular decisions and the heavy lifting to the governors and mayors. His failure to have a coherent nationally coordinated response led to an ineffective checkered response and far too many shortcomings that allowed the disease to move from one state after another. All the while, he campaigned as a populist against governors were doing the right thing and urging the premature opening of schools and businesses in defiance of his own CDC guidance. He even ran against the Nation's top health scientist Dr. Fauci while holding many super-spreader events during exploding caseloads across critical states affecting 10 million Americans and killing 240,000. Our case and death rates are unmatched by any other developed nation.

Any objective assessment will reveal Trump’s culpability in

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the deadly carnage. Yet, he got more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016.

Trump’s popularity is not a result of any great accomplishments but propped up by his four-year non-stop, re-election campaign aimed largely at libertarian base voters. Trump never really tried to govern for all Americans and never stopped campaigning throughout his Presidency. He continued to run against Hillary Clinton, the media, President Obama

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and others to distract from his uncountable shortcomings.

Coupled with his combative, unpredictable, and caustic personality, Trump never promoted sound policy, responsible leadership, or consistent ideology.

Trump and Biden made Pennsylvania a top priority. Biden was able to flip the Commonwealth despite Trump’s all-out effort here.

Pennsylvania Democrats worked hard, gave much, and mail-in voters delivered

during a pandemic. Voters have taken a critical first step in ridding the Nation of Trump. But our long national nightmare is not over. While the hard-fought campaign for the Presidency is over, the long hard work of repairing the breaches in the walls of democracy will be arduous and will take a long time.

Germany’s DER SPIEGEL headline said it all. "Joe Biden's Almost Impossible Task,” describes this electoral victory as a "ripple, not

OPINION a wave," adding that Biden faces the "almost impossible task of reuniting a deeply divided Nation." In an editorial entitled, It Might Take a Miracle for Joe Biden to Reconcile America, Mathieu von Rohr warned, “When Biden takes office in January, he will be taking the helm of a United States that has been severely traumatized by four years under Trump and by this election campaign. Biden would like to return the U.S. to its pre-Trumpian normality, but he faces an uphill battle in doing so.”

Trump may be gone, but Trumpism is alive and well.

One of the most troubling trends, the populist resurgence fueled by Trump is a rejection of so much of America’s past world leadership in science.

We should not be surprised that the same politicians who don't believe in science now no longer believe in simple math.

Ironically much of the unrest is driven by the failure to stem the concentration of wealth in few hands or to tackle the declining economic status of so many blue-collar and service-based “working” people. Despite Trump’s massive tax-cut for the rich and crumbs for other Americans, Trumpsters continued to support Trump and Republicans.

Failures to raise the minimum wage, pass improvements to the Nation's healthcare systems or pass job-creating infrastructure bills, Republicans won more seats in the U. S. House than projected, making

advancing an agenda more challenging.

Republican presidents have won the popular vote once in the past twenty years. Yet Republicans have tremendous power as they have mastered in minority rule. As a minority party, they enjoy constitutional features that they have mobilized. The Electoral College and the U.S. Senate are anti-majoritarian institutions.

The Senate, with its filibuster rules with a majority of red states is structurally prone to domination by a minority.

Both institutions, along with the SCOTUS, have subverted majority rule. Many Republican states have engaged in voter suppression especially since the SCOTUS gutted the Voter Rights Act. This dynamic occurs at the local level, too, where gerrymandering allows Republicans to inflate their state legislatures' representation.

As our German friends observed, President-elect Biden enters the Presidency with a disturbingly weak hand. Mitch McConnell is the self-proclaimed grim reaper.

His Senate has been the place where all good House bills go to die. It looks like McConnell will retain control of the Senate unless both Georgia runoff elections go for Democrats. You can bet that every dark-money funder will be flooding money into Georgia to prevent that from happening. It will take an all-out effort from across the Nation and especially from Georgia voters to win these two seats.

Since Pennsylvania Senator Toomey has decided not to run again, this Pennsylvania seat will be hotly challenged in 2022, and the campaign will begin within the year with a Trumpster-backed, dark-money funded candidate.

During the election, Republican candidates and Trump warned that Biden would “pack” the Supreme Court.

The truth is they already did with six Federalist-Society-appointed corporatists.

The federal district and appeal courts have already been packed with more than 90 new Federalist Society judges.

The SCOTUS will once again consider the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act in the middle of a raging pandemic that has not yet peaked. The SCOTUS will also clearly have the propensity to protect corporate America by constraining Biden’s attempts to address climate change and other pressing needs.

Republicans also held onto critical state legislatures while adding significant gains giving them gerrymandering control over redistricting for the next decade. Since the Pennsylvania legislature is responsible for congressional and state legislative redistricting, the outcome of the election impacts Pennsylvania’s redistricting process following the 2020 census. Congressional and state legislative maps are drawn by a commission comprised of legislators but are subject to a gubernatorial veto.

Zeynep Tufekci wrote a

piece in Atlantic entitled "The best hope for American democracy is unified action by the majority: America’s Next Authoritarian Will Be Much More Competent.” Tufekci warned, “At the moment, the Democratic Party risks celebrating Trump’s loss and moving on—an acute danger, especially because many of its constituencies, the ones that drove Trump’s loss, are understandably tired. A political nap for a few years probably looks appealing to many who opposed Trump, but the real message of this election is not that Trump lost and Democrats triumphed. It’s that a weak and untalented politician lost, while the rest of his party has completely entrenched its power over every other branch of government: the perfect setup for a talented right-wing populist to sweep into office in 2024. And make no mistake: They’re all thinking about it.”

In the years ahead, we must find a way to confront and overcome the fundamental flaws in our constitution that brought us so close to an end with a President who consistently operated outside of the rule of law. We must start now by helping Georgia voters to confront the Senate anti-democratic distribution that has impeded urgently needed progress on climate change, health care, and so many other pressing issues.

PITTSBURGH CURRENT | NOVEMBER 11, 2020 | 13

ARTS 'WRITERS AND LOVERS' AUTHOR LILY KING TO TAKE PART IN PGH ARTS AND LECTURES EVENT

C

asey Peabody is a writer who is drowning under student loan debt and living in a potting shed converted into living space, even though it still smells as fecund and loamy as a gardening shed would, and she cooks in a toaster oven because there isn't a proper kitchen. She is also trying to get over her painful breakup with a poet who had an overly inflated estimation of himself.

In this way, Lily King's novel, 'Writers & Lovers' (Grove Press, 2020) is a tale about writing and writers, but don't let that scare you off. This isn't a self-involved ego piece where the hero toils in her parlor.

Much of this book takes place at the restaurant where Casey waitresses and it is a breath of fresh air to have a book that centers so much around work and everyday financial worries.

King told the Current that she learned to love writing about work when she was writing 'Euphoria,' her 2014 tour-de-force about anthropologist Margaret Mead which won the Kirkus Award, the New England Book Award, and

BY JODY DIPERNA - PITTSBURGH CURRENT CONTRIBUTING WRITER

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Lily King

the Maine Fiction Award and was a finalist for a National Book Critics Award.

Unlike Mead, Casey is not a famous anthropologist. She continues to shepherd all of her mental and emotional energy to focus on her first novel, when nearly all of her friends from her MFA program

14 | NOVEMBER 11, 2020 | PITTSBURGH CURRENT

have walked away from their writing endeavors.

"I really wanted to explore what it felt like to be a woman in the 90's, holding onto this ambition and feeling like there might not be a place for it -- and that it came more easily to men," King said of her protagonist.

"There wasn't a whole lot of room for women to have that kind of an ambition. There wasn't a lot of room in society to give her permission to pursue this. There's a lot of push back. I wanted to capture that and how hard it is to hold onto a dream, when no one else is really rooting for you, everyone else is a little bit cynical about what you're trying to do.

It's really hard not to slip into cynicism and doubt and fear."

Literary fiction is rife with male writers writing about male heroes who are damaged and damaging. Their lives are often a mess because of the decisions they've made and because of their own bad behavior.

"And you root for him

ARTS anyway," King said. That common literary trope is turned on its head by King's beating heart -- Casey is quite serious, grinding through waitressing double shifts to stay one step ahead of the loan interest accrual machine and ignoring her physical health because she doesn't have health insurance. She also exercises tremendous control and restraint in order to achieve her goals.

King writes: "I have a pact with myself not to think about money in the morning. I'm like a teenager trying not to think about sex. But I'm also trying not to think about sex. Or Luke. Or death. Which means not thinking about my mother, who died on vacation last winter. There are so many things I can't think about in order to write in the morning."

The aforementioned death of Casey's mother allows King to explore the grief specific to losing one's mother, which she does with exquisite depth and compassion, capturing something essential about how hard it can be to keep your head above those waters. The grief is there, all the time, like a tide: sometimes she's just bobbing and rocking in gentle swells and other times it knocks her sideways.

"I wanted to capture those waves. Grief is so different from depression or anxiety or anything like that," she said. While the book is fiction, this feeling was King's way of putting on the page what it felt like after her own mother died, also suddenly.

"You can feel fine and then you can just be thunderstruck. And then you're fine again. And then you're thunderstruck. There are these huge, huge waves and all you can hope for is that the waves start spacing out further and further away after a while."

With this book, Lily King is doing twenty things at once and making it all seem effortless. But at the heart, it is a love letter to those who continue to create in the face of difficulties and the gritty pains unique to working towards a goal when the world isn't loving you back. If nothing succeeds like success, she examines the fortitude and determination it takes to break through that wall.

"It's hard for people to believe in any one unless they have already succeeded," she said.

Lily King's virtual event with Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures will be held on Monday, November 16th.

OFFICIAL ADVERTISEMENT THE BOARD OF PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE

SCHOOL DISTRICT OF PITTSBURGH ADVERTISEMENT FOR BIDS

Sealed proposals shall be deposited at the Administration Building, Bellefield Entrance Lobby, 341 South Bellefield Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15213, on December 08, 2020, until 2:00 P.M., local prevailing time for: Pgh. Chartiers Early Childhood Center Finish Floor Replacements and Miscellaneous Work General and Asbestos Abatement Prime Pgh. Classical Academy 6-8 Bleacher Demolition Project General Prime Pgh. Miller PreK-5 Comprehensive Plaster Repair and Painting General, Mechanical, Electrical and Asbestos Abatement Prime Pgh. Perry High School CTE Cosmetology Relocation General, Plumbing, Mechanical, Electrical and Asbestos Abatement Primes Pgh. Perry High School Bleacher Demolition Project General Prime Project Manual and Drawings will be available for purchase on November 02, 2020 at Modern Reproductions (412-488-7700), 127 McKean Street, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15219 between 9:00 A.M. and 4:00 P.M. The cost of the Project Manual Documents is non-refundable. Project details and dates are described in each project manual.

We are an equal rights and opportunity school district

PITTSBURGH CURRENT | NOVEMBER 11, 2020 | 15

MUSIC RYAN HOFFMAN SET TO RELEASE NEW SOLO RECORD

BY CHARLIE DEITCH - PITTSBURGH CURRENT EDITOR

In 2019, Ryan Hoffman and the Pioneers released their debut record, In the Alps. It was a return to playing in a band, Hoffman was previously a guitarist in the Roadrunners, after a stint as a solo artist.

Everything about Alps was a band collaboration. Hoffman and the quartet wrote as a group and by all reviews, it was a standout.

The band even started working on music for a second record. But on Friday, June 13, a new record, rue country, will be released, but instead of a Pioneers follow-up it’s surprisingly a solo record. ‘rue country’ features a new complement of musicians, except for saxophonist and backup vocalist and Pioneers holdover Amy Linette. With the new record due in just a couple days, Hoffman took time to talk about rue country.

Did you have a particular theme in mind when you started writing?

I think there was a lot of room for experimentation. I wasn’t sure if It was going to be a whole album or EP or a couple of singles. But during the initial quarantine, I was playing a lot of music and just writing whatever came to mind. I went with the album title ‘rue country’ because it felt like all of the songs had these characters who live in this little world, ‘rue country’ and the songs are written from different points of view some mine, and some others.

CHARLIE@PITTSBURGHCURRENT.COM

Ryan Hoffman performs on the Pittsburgh Current Concert Series in 2019. (Current Photo by Jake Mysliwczyk)

What was the genesis for the record?

We were unsure if the band was going to continue, so I needed something to write songs for. I had about six songs that didn’t quite fit with the band that I wanted to do. I contacted a few studios around here and went with Nate Campisi at Mr. Smalls.

My plan was to record a couple songs and see how it went.

We worked really well together and ended up recording 13

16 | NOVEMBER 11, 2020 | PITTSBURGH CURRENT

songs, 10 of which made it on the record.

Was it one idea that grew?

It was. I initially recorded an EP before COVID. ‘London Time’ was the first one we did after the initial quarantine.

After doing that one, Nate and I thought that this new style was stronger than the first 5 that we did - so we kept playing off of that. Since London Time was about a character and not about me - it opened the doors for much of the

writing on the album.

Is there a significance to using different musicians other than the pioneers?

I think back in February, I really wanted to do something different than the folky stuff the Pioneers were doing. So I had to take a different writing approach as well. Initially this album was just me and Nate playing everything. He brought in his friends, including drummer Pat Coyle, and that changed the sound completely. We decided to keep working with other musicians that Nate regularly played with — so it’s kind a mashup of different people. I think the resulting sound is very different from what thePioneers were doing.

Is this signaling a return to Solo performing?

Possibly. It was certainly a return to solo writing. I really enjoy being able to leave space to build the songs in the studio, so all of this writing had that in mind. I’ll still play these songs with the band, hopefully with some new additions, as soon as we can safely play shows again.

But yes I think this album is more reminiscent of my previous solo EP ‘The Pines’ than anything the band was doing. So yes, except more solo performances with these ones and some future songs. I am currently working on new stuff for another project.

BEAR THE DOG

ESSAY

BY MATTHEW WALLENSTEIN - PITTSBURGH CURRENT COLUMNIST

“There was a 14 year old kid but he looked like he was about 8. He was short and skinny and small. I’ve never seen anyone as fast as this kid.”

“Do you remember his name?

“Oh yeah, I remember his name.”

“What was it?”

“What was his name? I don’t remember. Well I remember his last name, I think.”

“What was it?”

“I don’t remember. So anyway, this kid, well he was the youngest of something like eight kids and the older ones, they were all sisters. He had like 6 or 8 older sisters, and then his mother. And he supported the whole family.

He did it by stealing. He could move fast. Oh, he could move fast. He had this little angelic face about him and he’d go into the churches. He supported his entire family, all those siblings and his mother and everybody.

He had a route, he would mix it up sometimes. He would go into the different churches and he would watch where they put the collection plates and as soon as no one was looking he would get all the money and put it in his backpack and on to the next one, you know? He had them all figured out.

“His mother used to tell him— we knew because he used to tell us about it— his mother used to say, ‘you know, Bonnie and Clyde, they was good, but you, you’re going to be better.’

“So anyway, he kept winding up in the juvenile jail there where I worked. Way back, this was way back. Anyway, at the youth detention center they had all these cottages, they would

INFO@PITTSBURGHCURRENT.COM

call them. And the one I worked in was the maximum security cottage. Every kid had a cell with bars and everything. There was a sliding door in the common area where the kids got to be once in a while. Then there was the office, then there was another steel door to get from the office to the outside. We called the office ‘the cage’.

“When they came in to deliver the food, the person in the office would open the sliding doors to the common room and give the food cart to another worker.

The kids would eat there in the common room.

“One day this little guy, one day he hid, I don’t know where he was hiding exactly. In the 5 seconds it took to get the food from the cage to the common area he snuck past everyone and got into the office. He got the key to the outside off the wall and let himself out and took off running.

“So inside of about 5 minutes the police and the staff and everybody was out looking for him. The jail was located outside of town in this big wooded area.

And this kid, he had done this enough times before to know his way around. He evaded capture for quite some time.”

“How long?”

“Oh hours, all day. Then late in the afternoon he came back.

And he’s banging on the door, ‘let me in, let me in. I got something important to tell ya’. So they let him in, a’course they handcuffed him and everything.

Everyone was so surprised they asked him what the heck was he doing turning himself in. He says, ‘never mind that, I had to.

There’s five puppies that have been abandoned, they are in a box out in the woods. They look only a week old and they won’t survive unless somebody goes out and gets them.’ He’s all worried about these puppies. He turned himself back in so someone could go and save them.

“After they threw him back in his little cell and everything— no compassion for this little kid—they sent the maintenance guy to round up the puppies. He brought them back. They asked me which one I wanted. I said I definitely wanted one, but I said they could pick whatever ones they wanted and I’d take the one nobody wants. So that’s what happened and I got the best one of the bunch. I had him for I guess 5 or 6, well I guess about 5 years I had him.”

“What was his name?”

“He traveled all over the country with me in my jeep. I got pictures of him.”

“What happened to him?”

“Well, um. I was up at my parents house, up on school street one night and I let Bear out. That was his name, Bear.

I was stupid in those days I would just let the dog out and then a little later I would call him and he would come. I guess I should have kept him on a leash, but… Well so Bear, he got a whiff of a dog in heat down on Pleasant Street somewhere, down by the Centennial Home. He didn’t have any tags or identification. I guess he and two or three other dogs were down there bothering this dog in heat. The owner called the police and they put all the other dogs in the impound because

they had tags. Bear didn’t have a tag so they killed him.”

“Oh shit.”

“And they took him to the SPCA and dropped his body off. I didn’t know about any of this until later. He would always come back as soon as I called him. Immediately after he didn’t come I dialed the SPCA. I asked them if anyone had brought in a stray dog and I gave the description and they said ‘no, no, no’. I called the police and told them the dog was missing and they didn’t say anything. In the meantime they already done him in and dropped him off but no one would tell me anything.

I think it was the next day, I kept calling and no one had seen anything and no one knew anything, nobody, nothing.

And finally I went up to the SPCA myself. I asked about the dog and told them what he looked like for the umpteenth time. They said ‘yeah yeah, oh yeah, we’ve got a dead dog that matches that description. You want to see him?’ I went and looked and sure enough it was Bear. “ “Damn.”

“They had dropped him off and nobody would have told me.”

“Damn.”

“Well I guess it was my own fault for letting him out and not having a tag on him. But that’s what happened to Bear.

And that’s what happened to that kid, he had a good heart and didn’t want those puppies to die.”

PITTSBURGH CURRENT | NOVEMBER 11, 2020 | 17

SAVAGE LOVE Savage Love Love | sex | relationships

BY DAN SAVAGE MAIL@SAVAGELOVE.NET

Why are threesomes much more accepted in the popular imagination than foursomes? I was just googling "finding foursomes" and the first result is an article about threesomes that takes for granted that people are looking for MFF. That is a form of heteronormativity, right? I am not judging threesomes, of course, but asking why foursomes are perceived as more taboo. Would be interested in knowing more about what you think about this or if you have any resource to recommend as I am approaching this now with my partner for the first time.

Willing To Foursome PS: Love what you do with your work.

I don’t think the popular imagination has conspired against foursomes or that foursomes area really that much more taboo than threesomes, WTF. Rather, I think threesomes are easier to arrange than

foursomes and the popular imagination reflects that fact. Think about it: Finding two people who wanna fuck each other is hard. Finding three people who all wanna fuck each other—Person A wants to fuck Person B and Person C, Person B wants to fuck Person A and Person C, Person C wants to fuck Person A and Person B—is harder still. Adding a Person D to the mix makes the wannafuckmath infinitely more complicated. Which is not to say everybody fucks everybody during a threesome, of course, but at the very least everyone involved has to at least be okay with fucking in very close proximity to everyone else involved.

And while complicated to arrange and often emotionally tricky, WTF, threesomes aren’t really that taboo. According to research into sexual fantasies done by Dr. Justin Lehmiller, it’s the single most common sexual fantasy. More than 90% of men and nearly 90%

18 | NOVEMBER 11, 2020 | PITTSBURGH CURRENT

of women fantasize about having a threesome, according to Dr. Lehmiller’s research; according to other research, roughly one-in-five people have actually participated in at least one threesome. (Full discloser/cumblebrag: I lost my virginity in a MMF threesome.)

Threesomes are heteronormative by design, e.g. they were arranged to fulfill a straight man’s standard-issue MFF fantasy, but judging from my mail just as many MFF threesomes are arranged to fulfill the same-sex desires of often-but-notalways-newly-out bisexual women who already have husbands or boyfriends— less heteronormative and more bisupportive/biexplorative. (My mail isn’t scientific evidence, I realize, but it’s what I’ve got.)

And for the record I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a heteronormative threesome. Straight guys should be allowed to have and be allowed to realize their sexual fantasies without being shamed, just like everyone else, so long as they’re realizing them with consenting adult partners. And while straight guys have historically done most of the judging and shaming of non-straight/non-guys over the entire course of

human history, the corrective isn’t to heap shame on straight guys with offthe-rack sexual fantasies.

It’s to demand that no one should be shamed for their sexual fantasies and we demonstrate our commitment to that principle by not shaming anyone—not even straight guys—who seek to realize their sexual fantasies with other consenting adults.

And finally, WTF, there is one place where foursomes are far less taboo and could even described as standard: the organized and mostly straight and often supremely heteronormative swingers’ scene. If you and your partner are of the opposite sex and are interested in or willing to settle for strictly heterosexual sex where men are concerned, you might find more luck arranging foursomes at swingers’ parties—once those parties are possible again—than on dating apps.

Where do I go from here? My parents voted for Trump in 2016 and again in 2020. I'm a lesbian. My partner and I have been together for nearly 20 years. My parents have always been supportive, we have a great relationship. But I can't reconcile their vote for this piece

SAVAGE LOVE of trash. They're not even pro-life or religious. I genuinely don't understand.

What The Fuck Do I Do Now? My dad voted for George W. Bush in 2004. Bush’s campaign was pushing anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives across the country in the hopes that bigots would turn out in huge numbers and put his incompetent ass back in the White House. The fact that the then-president of the United States—the worst one we thought we’d see in our lifetimes—was waging a demagogic campaign against one of his own children didn’t stop my dad from voting for him. For a second time.

I didn’t stop talking to my father.

While I believe we have to confront family members about their bigotries and that there have to be social consequences when people vote for racism and fascism and oligarchy and corruption and disease and death, WTFDIDN, I don’t think cutting off contact with non-toxic/non-QAnon parents or family members is the answer.

Where there’s evidence of cognitive dissonance—and a family member voting for someone seeking to

harm people they love is certainly evidence of cognitive dissonance—there’s also an opportunity. So I would urge you to express your displeasure to your parents and demand better from them and to keep bringing it up. While text messages from strangers and robocalls often fail to move people, appeals to conscience—sometimes angry ones—from family members often work. I’ve heard from a lot of people over the last few months whose parents voted for Trump in 2016 but voted for Biden this year. I wish I could say my dad was one of them. Maybe next time.

There are elections coming up in 2022 and there’s a high likelihood we will see a Trump on the ballot in 2024. (There are two special elections in Georgia in January that will determine who controls the U.S. Senate!) The parents who disappointed you and endangered our Democracy in this election are likelier to come around before the next election if you demand answers from them now.

I'd like to think I am pretty open and understanding to a lot of things.

I met a hot guy at my job who says he has a fetish for ass. In a sexting ses-

sion, I learned he was not only obsessed with my ass, but me playing with his too. He later revealed there was only one other woman he felt comfortable sharing his gay fantasies.

Everything involved ass play, sucking dildos or DP. (Eyebrow raised.) I asked him if he was curious about gay sex and he said no. In no way does he want a man, he said, and everything he wanted done to him he wanted a woman to do. We’ve had several sexting sessions and it always shifts to me dominating him or a gay sex fantasy. I really want to be open but he is making this very hard.

Questioning Unusual Exceptionally Erotic Relationship This would be easier if you were clear—clear with yourself—about what you want and what’s possible. If you want a long-term relationship that doesn’t revolve around ass play and you couldn’t possibly enjoy a casual sexual adventure with a hot guy who isn’t a good potential long-term partner… then you should stop sexting with him. But if you’re up for a crazy, ass-centered sexual adventure with a hot guy that won’t lead to anything serious or longterm… then get yourself

a strap-on dildo and order this not gay guy to get on his not gay knees and suck your not gay dick.

I suspect you feel tense after sexting with this guy because you’re left thinking, “My God, what am I signing up for here?”

The animating assumption being that “going there” means getting stuck there.

But if you told yourself you were only signing up for a crazy night or a crazy weekend instead with this ass-obsessed dude and not a lifetime with him, you would most likely feel a lot less nervous about this connection. In other words, QUEER, being open to playing with this guy doesn’t mean you have to be open to dating him, much less marrying him. But, again, if having a sexual adventure with someone who isn’t a potential long-term partner isn’t something you could see yourself doing and enjoying, QUEER, stop responding to this guy’s sext messages. mail@savagelove.net Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage.

On the Lovecast, Dan consults a rabbi. www.savagelovecast.com

PITTSBURGH CURRENT | NOVEMBER 11, 2020 | 19

PA R T I N G S H OT

PITTSBURGH CURRENT PHOTO BY JAKE MYSLIWCZYK PITTSBURGH CURRENT | NOVEMBER 11, 2020 | 20