Pittsburgh Culture: It's All About the Booze. And Face Punching.

Looking for a tight summary of the state of culture in Pittsburgh? The challenges it faces as its economy continues to transform? The best I have seen comes in today's Tribune-Review...

From the paper's wine writer, Dave DeSimone.

I'm not sure if he meant his column as a broad social commentary, but that's what it is:

Not so long ago, Pittsburgh’s image as a “Steel City” with an unquenchable thirst for the proverbial “shot and a beer” seemed indelible. But just as the rise of “meds and eds”—that is, the medical and education fields—and financial services as the dominant sectors in the regional economy has blurred the national identity of the “Steeltown USA”, the “shot and a beer” stereotype is slowly waning in the wake of the indisputable success of events such as the Pittsburgh Wine Festival.

It's hard to dispute. What's less clear is how such developments will be received. I think the city's reaction to the Steeler's Super Bowl victory was instructive. (I know. Pretty soon people will stop trying to read things into a football game. But not yet.) The meta-narrative that people latched onto was that "Pittsburgh" had managed to hold true in the face of the "meds and eds" white-collar horde. That, in fact, rather than gentrifying, the city had somehow managed to un-gentrify these greenhorns. To turn them into beer-swilling fellas who love staunch defense and the "run-first" mentality. The kind of people who take several days off work to nurse hangovers and attend parades. That we had managed, in a peculiar way, to turn them blue-collar. To what extent was that true? Your guess is as good as mine. Although I suspect that it's probably kind of true, kind of not.

But the loss of shot 'n beer culture could be the final straw. Which is why I think that no matter what happens with the actual culture, people are going to do everything in their power to cling to the image of the old culture. People are going to keep talking about Chiodo's and act like they still drink there. Or places like it. It's important, for some reason. Even for a lot of the people, professional and otherwise, who support the wine festival. Maybe even more so.

But kudos to DeSimone. Nice bit of work. And a thought: Do any of the local papers have a "beer writer"? A "shot writer"? What are the implications of the answer? Would patrons of Chiodos have WANTED a beer writer? Or would they have punched him in the face? Or am I just dealing in the same old tired stereotypes? Hmmm..... I don't know. I like to think they would have punched him in the face. For some reason it seems important to me to think that they would have.

Discuss amongst yourselves. Or I'll punch you in the face.

See? Much better...

Comments

[Mark Stroup]

The P-G definitely has a beer writer, Bob Batz. If there's a new way or old way to drink beer, Batz has already written about it. He also has a lock on the eccentric beat. As for Chiodo's welcoming a beer writer, I'm sure they had on various occasions. I can imagine a Chiodo's patron drinking an Iron City at one of the countless social clubs in Homestead, and then having a super premium at Chiodo's and discussing bitterness units.

Even though I was never a frequent visitor, I'll always remember Chiodo's as being a welcoming crowd. I went there once to buy a Xmas six-pack for somebody. I got expert advice from three or four people.

[Sam M]

Mark,

Excellent feedback. Now the question: Has anyone ever punched Batz in the face? I hope not. He writes good stuff. Thanks for reminding me. And for your memories of Chiodo's. I think what is most interesting about such places is that they attain to mythological status, becoming more and more like they were the longer they have been gone. In some tellings, it becomes a quaint Pittsburgh version of Cheers. In others the brawls keep getting bigger and more violent. Nostalgia is weird that way. It's not just THERE. People USE it to support old ideas, challenge new ones, and otherwise filter what they see coming down the pike.

This is especially important in Pittsburgh, I think, where nostalgia for places like Chiodo's gets wrapped up in a larger nostalgia for the city itself, what it represented and what it should represent. For whom it exists and how it serves them.

And who deserves a punch in the face.

I don't know why, but that really seems important to me today. Maybe I ought to go for a walk.

[Jonathan Barnes]

Sam, you are a pissed off, angry man. It's endearing to a shot-and-beer Pittsburgher.
When we were in high school we would drive across town to go to Chiodo's spaghetti night on Wednesday or Thursday, where we'd munch on spaghetti and drink beer, no questions asked.
Nobody ever hassled me at Chiodo's, not even Joe himself, and I have punched a few faces and been punched about as many times.
Chiodo's was either the first or one of the first bars in Pittsburgh to serve Guinness on tap. The place for years was known for its imports and microbrews.
The patio out back with the grapevines growing on the walls was really special.
But this is America, where everything is bought and sold and owned, so Chiodo's is gone. Not that I blame Joe. I blame Walgreen's.

[Sam M]

Jonathan,

Yet more good feedback on this. Perhaps I have struck a chord.

To be honest, I never went to Chiodo's. Isn't it weird that I feel the need to say "to be honest"? In some way I feel like it establishes me as an "outsider." As someone who cannot really ever understand Pittsburgh as a "place."

As a Western PA guy, I have always considered myself a Pittsburgh person. We watched KDKA news and got the Pittsburgh Press on Sundays. We didn't say "yinz" (I know, it's a sensitive issue) but years later people in Maryland could always still recognize my "Pittsburgh accent." But I was only 10 or eleven when Homestead shut down. And I didn't go to college in the city. So I feel--like a traiter or something? Hard to explain, but it's there.

But I am glad to get such a different view of a place like Chiodo's. One of the first to serve microbrews, eh? That's fascinating. Nostalgia wants to say that the bar must have been full of crusty Imp n' Ahrn types who scoffed at fancy beer.

I love it when reality interrupts a good yarn and makes it better. See, these places--Pittsburgh writ large as well as Chiodo's--were never quite as simple as they might seem.

Again, I have to point out this this is probably old news to people with more "authentic" Burgh credibility. People who were here to witness that complexity. Thanks for sharing without, well, you know, punching me. In the face. However that might look in virtual reality.

[Amos the Poker Cat]

Hmm, I remember "bar next to the fern bar that became Hemmingway's (now Boomarang's?)" on Fifth ave in Oakland back in 1978 had Guinness. It was an old baseball bar. I think they had trim grill/screen near the bar made from bats? Maybe. I know I was 19 and drinking pitchers of Guinness with dinner every Sat with my 18 year old girlfriend. So much for being 21 to drink. They clearly needed the business, not many other college kids drinking there. Clearly, I have forgotten the name 29 years later. The Barney Stone in Etna also had Guinness. The best selection of "six packs to go" back then was the "O".

I am sot sure when Chiodo's (you were really an insider if you knew the correct hunky pronunciation, KEY-o-doughs, not CHIA-o-doughs) got Guinness on tap. Never really hung out there. Mainly because Joe (who is always "Mr Chiodo" in my mind) lived on the same street as my parents. I do know when he got one of the first lottery machines because as a known computer geek even before college, he stoppped to ask me to explain the operators manual to him one summer evening. Who else would know what a "cursor" was back in '75? It was not even in the dictionary then. Plenty of staff, and graduate students at CMU went to Chiodo's in the early 80's. I never heard of any problems.

[Pirate Pete]

Check out what's going on in the word of booze: http://mcbourniescolumn.blogspot.com/

[Jonathan Barnes]

Cat, are you a CMUer too? If so, no wonder you're a computer nerd...
You are a bit older than me, and I was going to Chiodo's with my buddies in high school in the early eighties. The place had all sorts of folks back then, as I recall. Maybe the Corny Mellonheads are the ones that helped bring in the good beer.

[Mark Stroup]

The bar that became Hemmingway's was called Gustine's, run by one-time Pirates third baseman, Frank Gustine. Tons of Pirates pictures on the wall. I can only remember the place in black and white.

Sam, speaking of myth and reality, the Pittsburgh Signs Project, of which I'm an editor, has some interesting comments on the Electric Banana (Johnny's got a gun, etc.)--
http://pittsburghsigns.org/archives/2004/11/the_electric_ba.html