The Blurgh

Early February during my junior year of college – three years ago today, to be exact. The spring semester (if you can even call it that, since the wind chill regularly hovered around the single digits) had just started and I was already overwhelmed by the classes I was taking. Writing the Memoir? The Politics of Women’s Bodies? Practical Applications of Astronomy? Was I really ready to handle all this?

As it turns out, I was, just not on this particular Saturday night. That night, I was going to relax, watch some old movies with my roommate and maybe crack open a bottle of Muscadet. I had just chosen three of our favorite films when Andi burst through the front door of our tiny Oakland apartment.

“Forget the movies, forget the wine, we’re going out,” she announced. I groaned.

“Absolutely not,” I said. “Uh, have you not heard about my week? I have to read five chapters of that women’s bodies book by Monday and I’m supposed to turn in the first draft of my memoir on Wednesday. What am I going to say, ‘small town girl moves to Pittsburgh and fakes her way through a ridiculous writing class that’s supposed to be about telling the truth?’ No. Tonight is for wine and Casablanca and spending time with your best friend.” I looked at Andi pointedly, trying to guilt her into changing into her pajamas.

I had forgotten that Andi is impervious to my guilt trips.

“Gretch, I love you, but seriously, we’re going out. Nothing major, just a small house party that Josh is having tonight.”

“You’re breaking our date so you can flirt with Josh?” I exclaimed. Josh was her co-intern at the ACLU and I had been hearing about him since August.

“I’m not breaking our date, I’m just changing the location. We’ll be together at the party, you know. And there will be other guys there.”

I sighed and realized I wasn’t going to win. After changing back into jeans and a sweater, we wound our way through South Oakland until we arrived at quite possibly the ugliest house I’d ever seen – green aluminum siding, red shutters and crumbling steps.

“Lovely chateau,” I whispered to Andi, but she ignored me and greeted Josh at the door. He nodded politely to me, then they started talking about the case they were working on at the ACLU. Recognizing a brush-off when I saw one, I headed back to the kitchen to inspect the wine choices, figuring I was lucky if I could find a box of Franzia.

There was another guy in the kitchen, already inspecting the bottles of wine lined up on the counter.

“Please, god, tell me there’s something to drink besides Boone’s Farm and Natty Light,” I said. He grinned.

“Actually, these pickings are pretty slim,” he said, “but I’ll share my private stash with you if you promise not to tell anyone else about it.”

“What did you bring?”

He pulled a bottle from a backpack lying on the counter. “Muscadet. Ever have it?”

“No way! I was going to have a quiet, relaxing evening with my roommate drinking Muscadet tonight!”

“Well, you and your roommate have exceedingly good taste,” he said, twisting the cork out of the bottle and pouring two glasses. He lifted his up. “To quiet, relaxing evenings.”

We clinked glasses and then proceeded to talk about everything under the sun. Pittsburgh city politics, the Academy Awards, the Amish, our mutual love for Marvin Gaye, how it was possible to both love and hate being in college all at once, our families, constellations, summer jobs. It was freewheeling and spontaneous and astonishing and sweet. And I didn’t really want it to end.

But around 2 AM, Andi drifted into the kitchen and said she was ready to go home. I turned to my companion and smiled.

“It was nice talking with you,” I said, “but I don’t know your name.”

“Frank,” he said. “Frank Zielinski. And you are?”

“Gretchen Parker. Want my number?”

He laughed. “Yes, I definitely want your number.”

“Good, because I want yours too.”

We exchanged numbers and polite pecks on the cheek. He called the next day. We’ve now been together for three years.

Does he ever have my number.

Since I’ll be starting an internship at Community Recycling and Renewables (CRR) in a few weeks, my days at the Castle are coming to an end.  It’s been awesome, and I’m going to miss the money a lot…I don’t know if you knew this, but there is quite a pay differential between bartending and interning!

It’ll actually work out all right, because starting in January, the Castle will be undergoing some renovation and expansion into the adjacent store.  Because of that, a large part of the bar will be unavailable, so they are cutting back on the number of people working every night.  I will miss it though, and I might try to start working there a few nights a week again after the semester’s over.  By then all the work will be done, so they’ll definitely be in need of people.

And I have to admit, I’m a little proud of myself–one of the main reasons that the owner decided to expand was to increase the capacity of the theatre and stage, and that’s largely due to the overwhelming success of the Rocky Horror night back on Halloween (my idea!).  The owner is planning on sponsoring an Indie movie night at least every week and also booking some bigger local bands as well as national acts to come play when the new and improved stage is done.

If you ask me, that’s something that Oakland desperately needs.  The South Side, Lawrenceville, the North Side and other neighborhoods already have big venues, but Oakland hasn’t had anything since Laga closed over 20 years ago (at least that’s what my Dad said).  He told me a story about sneaking in there to see P-Funk play when he was 16 or something…that must have been fun.

It’s been common knowledge for quite a while that there are several very accomplished arts programs at the universities in the area. Each school has their specialty, but overall, a lot of quality art, music, dance and theatre emerges from these programs every year.

Five or six years ago, a couple graduates from the various programs in town got together and had a great idea. Most of the various classes related to the arts have performances/shows as their final projects, but most of them are sparsely attended and largely ignored by the rest of the student body and surrounding community. To change this, the graduates used various connections in their respective schools and organized competitions between related disciplines to take place in the stead of multiple small performances. From the outset these have been wildly popular, and they’ve gone a long way in creating better connections between the universities and the communities that surround them.

Last night was the first in this series of competitions, and it was in music and dance. What I loved about this is that instead of holding separate music and dance performances, the organizers decided to combine them both. This not only drew a larger crowd, but also encouraged more internal cooperation between the music and dance departments within schools. And who prefers canned music over live, anyway?

There were several performances that covered many genres of music and dance, and they were all awesome. My favorites were Point Park’s Modern Dance to classic Pittsburgh Jazz and the Pitt African Drumming Ensemble. In the end, I voted for Pitt (I guess I do have some school spirit after all!), and they ended up winning the show!

It was a sweet performance, and I’ve enjoyed coming to the performances every finals season…which hasn’t been particularly helpful grade-wise! Later on this week I’ll tell you about the other competitions and how they went.

Last night was nuts. The long-awaited showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show finally happened at the Castle, and it went off better than I could have imagined. It started at 9, but by 8 o’clock there was already a line that looped around to Oakland Ave and went almost all the way up the Fifth. My boss was about to crap himself (his words), so I think he was pleased as well.

And, as planned, people were in full costume, and it was downright impressive. For a movie that came out 50 years ago, it has really maintained an amazing fanbase. Since I was working, I didn’t get to see much of the actual show, but I really can’t complain because tips have never been better!

In my opinion, though, the people-watching was definitely the best part. I was amazed at how everyone showed up. There were high school kids, college students, parents, grandparents, people who were 4th and 5th generation Pittsburghers of all races and ethnicities, new immigrants from all over the world…and people were just smiling and having a good time. It was a really great example of how inclusive and welcoming Pittsburgh has become–I was just happy to be a part of it.

Oh, and if you missed it, there’ll be another showing tonight @ 9.

The North Street corridor is a very happening spot if you’ve never checked it out. Yesterday there was a local film festival held at a place which just reopened called “The Garden.” My dad told me that back in the day it was a porno theatre, which struck me as hilarious, because now it’s a high-brow artsy theatre/gallery type of place. The inside was spectacular, and the films were awesome. Being that I’m a history dork, my favorite one was on all the craziness that was going on after the turn of the millennium, from the Y2K bug to 9/11 to Iraq to global warming finally getting the attention it deserved. That was one crazy-ass decade, and I have to say that I’m not too disappointed that I can’t remember any of it!

After that we went into the park across the street to see the street performers. There was one of those people who paints themselves in metallic paint and acted like a statue, there was a juggler, and there was a really impressive dance group from whereabouts unknown. We could have stayed longer and went to one of the clubs to catch a band, but we decided to skip out early and head home.

On another note, stuff at the Castle has been pretty good, and I finally convinced my manager to put on a Rocky Horror showing on Halloween. I totally promised him that there would be people dressed up and wild for it, which may be a hollow promise because I know absolutely no one at this point who would actually do it. If you have any suggestions, drop me an email!

Well, I guess this is it. The blog has begun.

So, some new stuff about me…I just got a job bartending at the Castle (which looks awesome since they remodeled it, btw). I won’t really start until later on this month, but I’m pretty sure it’ll work out. My mom was telling me that back when it was called King’s Court they used to have showings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show and people would dress up in costume and basically go nuts. I think I’ll try to bug the boss about doing something like that again this year when Halloween rolls around.

I’m also, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, actually looking forward to classes starting this Fall. I’m especially looking forward to the History of Pittsburgh class I signed up for at the last minute, and not only because I heard it was easy.

Anyway, check out the About Us page for more info on Gretchen and I and the About the Blurgh page for more info on the point of this blog. And wish me luck with keeping this thing going!