Not exactly an informative post here, but a here’s a story from Monday that you might find interesting and that may help you with a life lesson. The lesson is: Fuck ‘em. Don’t be a wimp.

Anthony Bourdain popped into the Steel City for a lecture of sorts at the Carnegie Music Hall this week. His lecture was another in the Drue Heinz Lecture series, which means that an old biddy living in Manhattan who happened to emerge from a wealthy vulva some years ago is tossing around ketchup and mustard money in order to patronize the literary arts; and more power to her, of course. However, Ciggy and I didn’t care enough to attempt to get tickets for the lecture since it ultimately didn’t matter if we went or not anyway, nor did I want to pay twenty-five dollars to see a guy retell his book that I had already read. I don’t have cable, so I’ve never seen his TV show, but the guy says the Ramones are the best band ever and likes Fun House a lot, so I figured we may as well just show up, attempt to sneak in, and if worse came to worse, go out to dinner instead and actually eat food instead of just listening to a millionaire talking about it.

I don’t know if you’re involved in “high culture” events in your city, but I’m not involved with them here in Pittsburgh. The large looming reason in my opinion is that Pittsburgh’s city is run by the old. Despite having a mayor that may be two years older than me and a City Councilman who may be found lecherously drunk at a frou-frou retro hipster lounge like Kelly’s on any given night, those in the know about fancy happenings in the city have generally ventured so far into the old age, old money, cultured white-folk conundrum that any expectations of engaging oneself in said happenings are generally met with disdain towards no-good punks like Cig and I, despite our love of fancy-boy shenanigans. But that shouldn’t be any reason to stop us from doing what we want to do. This is America and I do believe that I have certain rights… well, maybe not rights, but opinions that a bunch of squares driving in from Fox Chapel to police our city’s cultural development can go get fucked and that I was going to do what I wanted to do since it wouldn’t hurt anything expect the pride of security guards and gallery whores anyway.

We headed to Oakland that night about a a half-hour early to case the joint. Since the lecture was being given at the Carnegie Music Hall, it would be interconnected with the Museum of Art and the Natural History Museum. I’ve exploited this chink in the Carnegie’s armor before, but this escapade would require a little more daring since there’s always organizational face to save at these events for these lecture scene kings and queens. The lobby of the music hall was jam-packed with withered-away primped and prodded pampered flesh squeezed ever so lovingly into Brooks Brothers’ and Saks’ eveningwear, and a surprisingly large amount of indie rock never-will-bes who have hopped on the foodie train in the past couple of years. This brings me to my next point in my ever-growing litany of observations towards where the youth of America are heading.

While I may write about food for 7-Inch Slam, I am not in any position to consider myself a gourmand. People who can pay off their credit card bills on time or use words that seem made up like effluvient in their scathing critiques of new restaurants trying to make a buck can call themselves something as narcissistic as “foodie”. Food is something to be loved and experienced by everyone. It’s not another excuse for you to hold yourself in higher esteem than one who hasn’t gotten to savor the opportunities that you might have. Every day you get to listen to more and more young people talk about their budding careers in the kitchen that are oh so exquisite (and they’re generally talking with their eyes closed at this point) and varied and supplied completely by those extra special authentic food chain monsters like Whole Foods that are not only selling one the products that make their buyers somehow morally superior to those who would eat fried chicken or simmered greens or a baseball park hot dog, but they’re being sold a lifestyle that’s been dictated in chillingly accurate terms terms by that site Stuffwhitepeoplelike.com. Not that I don’t enjoy about 80% of the stuff on there or the products stores like that sell, but I’ve seen enough wispy bangs and scarves and poorly-manicured beards flopping around the neighborhood for one lifetime, and the last thing I need to hear is some vegetarian talking about how much they know about crepes and how much of a philistine I am for not adding chevre on my salad.

But back to the lecture. By now ticket lines began to form at every door, each guarded by a septuagenarian or a dude in a wheelchair or nice old lady who would probably just scold you for walking before radio’ing to a member of the staff that would physically toss you out. As the queues began to dwindle, we looked around for a possible hole in the defenses, but soon we were running out of time. The chandeliers overhead flickered on and off to announce the start time. Soon the lines were frittering away to nil, and then the doors began to lock as ticket-takers stepped away. Since this was probably the end of the line, and we looked silly waiting in the middle of an enormous lobby by ourselves for nothing, I said “Alright, let’s give it a go”. After slinking down the hall past the guards towards the Art Museum, we ducked around the guards’ desk while they were turned away, and slipped through the Hall of Architecture in the dark. The museum was closing down at this point, so it was completely empty and haunted by an ethereal quality in the dark that made it so much more fun to wander through it, with a constant eye on the hallways and ever-present chance of being discovered.

The top level of the museum housed the Eskimo and Indian exhibits I remembered from my youth, and we discovered that while we were moving in the right direction, eventually we wouldn’t be able to go much further since more doors began to be locked. After heading back down to the Architecture Hall, we noticed another door in the direction of the stage area on the other side. This one opened with a creak and we slipped inside to dart through the back hallways that employees used to get around the buildings. We were a few levels up from where the stage was, and after finding a pantry-sized entrance, we were soon above the stage hopping through a clambering set of staircases and scaffolding hovering all around us. Soon we were above the dome itself of the stage and we began to laugh at how silly a turn our path had taken to avoid paying for a lecture we weren’t that vested in in the first place. But sometimes you have to stay on the bus till all the stops are gone, I suppose. The area above the dome had some pretty interesting reminders of Pittsburgh’s past, with employee scrawls on the walls dating back to the 40’s and cigarette butts cluttering up the landings from who knows when. After traversing the dome and hanging up over the stage itself, we could see AB through the light portals above him and we realized that people could think we were attempting to kill a celebrity if we were discovered, and we could hear an announcer beginning the introduction for Bourdain. Thunderous applause wafted up through the ports in the ceiling and we hurried along to complete our stupid quest before we missed anything else.

By this time we were covered in grime and dirt from the neglected facilities and sweat rained down my face from the hot lights below us. As we got down to more stable footing, we were backstage or thereabouts. Soon we found ourselves surrounded by boilers and administrative facilities, and I assumed this meant we must have been somewhere important. I found a small wooden door and opened it up. Soon I was greeted by Anthony Bourdain’s back, a large expanse of red carpet, and an enormous crowd looking directly at me. I would assume this was the case because I had opened the stage door like a fool and had exposed our existence to all in attendance who may not take it as well to know that young men were scampering around their hallowed halls. I shut it as quietly as possible and we were passed by the soundman who was taking a break and didn’t seem to care that we were hanging in his space. Finally, we ducked around one final corner and found ourselves twenty feet away from the stage on the left side. We had finally made it. I used any remaining sweat left to clean my hands and we settled into our new standing area in the wings.

The lecture itself didn’t have a discernible theme. I suppose if I had nothing to promote and no real agenda, I would just get out there and ramble myself. But AB was an engaging and energetic speaker who kept the audience laughing and reminded me more of Richard Lewis than Jacques Pépin. He breezed over topics like his extensive travels and was not much of an asshole at all, which he seemed to pride himself on in Kitchen Confidential. He curtailed his use of profanity to one utterance of “motherfucker” and told the crowd “even I’m not a big enough prick to smoke around a baby”. This kept the country club denizens from becoming too offended and merely just playfully offended. After about forty-five minutes, he cut his rap short and began to field questions from the audience with the help of a smartly-attired businesslady who commandeered the microphone and chose audience members with their hand up. This is where everything began to fall apart and I felt as bad for Anthony Bourdain as I could feel for a guy who has millions and is successful in business, literature, life, love, and travel. He had to field questions from buffoonish Pittsburgh restaurateurs who simply could not grasp the idea that he did not want to come drink in their bar or eat their cooking or get drunk on a Monday night or fuck him when he had already explained that he was getting on a plane immediately afterwards to return to his wife and newborn. Call me a jerk and all, but I was born and raised here and I’ve lived in this city most of my life, and plenty of you have been “home” here since freshman year of college and I can go right ahead and say that for a bunch of goofs dumb enough to pay twenty-five bucks for an hour of their lives they could have gotten from reading the same damn book I did, they made us look like a bunch of slobs. And I am no uptight pretty boy who cowers in shame at the idea of foolish behavior. But I think once is enough and when someone refuses another’s advances, no means no. When the painful audience interaction ended, he really did hustle off and most likely split town. If he returns again is of no consequence. He didn’t eat anything here, and that’s what everyone truly wanted: to show off our city to him. And while there is nothing wrong with that, I don’t think badgering and a sense of entitlement heavy enough to break a horse’s back are the way to go about it.

Ciggy snapped a cameraphone picture, and I was surprised I forgot to bring mine, which would have made this entry a lot more enjoyable, I bet. However, I’m sure that was more than made up for by the 1,000 other digital cameras going off at the slightest arm wave or round of applause. While Americans continue to document absolutely everything they do for someone’s benefit (?), Ciggy and I slipped out and walked over to the Union Grill. The true joy of the night came here while I feasted upon the lump crab cake sandwich with sweet potato chips and Cig housed the Rich Boy, a lovely garlic butter shrimp sandwich served on garlic bread with feta, romaine, and other assorted veggies. The crowd began to filter in from the lecture and soon the place was packed to the gills. We paid our check, glad to not overtly tax our server with ridiculous demands, and headed off into the night.

So it’s not that important in the grand scheme of things, but I guess this experience can tell you can make an adventure out of most situations if you try hard enough and are not afraid to get in trouble. But that’s my story.