Blog of Josh Hall

When I bought my house in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, my roommate, Jordan, and I noticed that there were always people huddled around this building at the corner of Wylie Ave and Erin Street.  We were unsettled, but also a little curious as to what was really going on there.  Jordan asked my neighbor, Sonny, what the deal was.  Sonny simply answered, "That’s a jitney station."  That didn’t help us much, and I think he could tell by the look on our faces. 

He went on to explain, if you don’t have a car, you walk to the jitney station and someone there will give you a ride.  It’s like an open market taxi service.  People use their own cars to delivery people where they want to go.  So some of the people that congregate there are people that want a ride, and some are people waiting to give people rides somewhere, and the rest are probably people that just like to be around other people.  If you have spent any time in the Hill, you know how much truth there is to the latter.

That’s part of the culture of the Hill District; The people.  Even the jitney by essence exemplifies the focus of people interacting with people on their own accord.  It’s funny how…let me phrase this properly…whites…caucasions…suburbanites?….sheltered people…people who are scared of the Hill are scared of the unknown…but that they’d probably end up being more afraid of how congenial and engaging people are.  It’s crazy to witness how far out of the way someone will go just to make sure the person they went to high school with 20 years ago hears them say "Hi!" to them.  Everyone knows everyone in the Hill.

August Wilson wrote about the culture of the Hill District in his plays.  That’s probably where the term "jitney" has gained most of it’s popularity.  August’s childhood home is a couple blocks from me, in a state of much disrepair. (here’s a pano from Steve Mellon – http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08105/872496-429.stm )

It’s sad to see how much importance social interaction is in the Hill District and how much culture is valued, but how little is actually being done to preserve it.  It’s almost a paradox way of life.  How can you value both the present day person as they grow into the future, when they identify so strongly with staying connected to the past.  Certainly a deeper question than what I wanted to cover in this post, but it’s there.

More on August Wilson and his plays – http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10127/1056192-325.stm?cmpid=newspanel0

Unless you’re standing in isolation on top of a mountain somewhere, it is never acceptable to urinate with your hands on your hip with your elbows out.  Not only do you look silly, but that’s just asking for an accident.   CONTROL YOUR FLOW.

I’ve told this story to only a few people.  You might be a little grossed out, but it’s pretty funny.

Sometime when I was in college, my cousin, Adam, invited me to take a trip to Cedar Point with a bunch of his friends.  We met up at like 6 am and drove out to the park.  I was just getting over a bit of a cold, but it wasn’t all that bad, just needed to blow my nose every few hours or so.  We got in line for the Mantis, which is one of the better rides in the park.  The line was unusually long, but it was definitely worth the wait.  If you’re familiar with the ride, it does this fantastic set of 3 inverted loops for the finale.  The G force is so intense and that fact that you’re standing up makes it completely different from anything you’ve felt before.

What made this ride so memorable was what happened during those loops.  Standing in line for so long, sniffing my snot, didn’t seem like that much of a worry.  As soon as I hit those loops though, my nasal passages had nothing of a fight against gravity.  Snot went everywhere.  It was along the sides of my face, on my shoulder, and by the screams of “EWWWWWW!!!” behind me (I was in the front), I’m pretty sure some people got a present as well.  The fortunate thing (for me, at least) is that you do those loops on top of a body of water, so it’s not uncommon to get hit with some moisture.  I don’t think anyone knew what happened, until I told Adam, much much later.

Never date your friend’s sister.

Political opinions are like butt holes; Everyone has one and they all stink.  To extend the analogy, they should not be revealed in public places.  To extend it even further, possibly into metaphor, If you are so emotional about your political opinion and it’s all you really think about, perhaps your head is a little too close to previously mentioned nether-region.

I like how pandora and last.fm recommend music based on the genre and bands you’re listening too, but I’m envisioning a site based on literal connections that bands have.  I think the interface could very pretty and fun.  It could be like TheyRule.net.  Think a colored red circle with "Foo Fighters" written in the middle.  clicking on it would pop out all these little circles.  Maybe one would be a blue circle with "Nirvana" written on it.  You could click on the line that connected the two and it would tell you that Dave Grohl played drums in Nirvana and is the front man for Foo Fighters.  Maybe another Circle could be Gary Numan, and the connection is that Foo Fighters covered his "Down in the Park."  Getting content would be as easy as partnering with last.fm, http://www.coversproject.com/, and maybe freedb.org.  I’d like to see connections such as band members that have the same birthdays or went to the same highschool and bands that have the same lyrics or song titles.