City councilor Doug Shields, who is seeking a public referendum on banning natural-gas drilling in city limits, is alleging that civic leaders are pressuring council to kill the measure. Among those leaders: Democratic county executive candidate Rich Fitzgerald, and two members of the city's financial oversight board.

Council is set to debate the referendum measure this Wednesday. Voting in favor of the bill  would give city voters a chance to amend the Home Rule Charter this November, outlawing natural-gas drilling in Pittsburgh. If passed, the referendum would reinforce a drilling ban  already passed by council last year. 

But late Friday afternoon, Shields sent an e-mail to reporters arguing that  councilors were being pressured to keep the measure off the November ballot. The e-mail reads in part:

For those of you that have been asking. Yes, it is true. Rich Fitzgerald, candidate for County Executive and recipient of significant contributions from Shale Gas industry, Dennis Yablonsky, CEO of the Allegheny Conference, Barbra McNees, ICA oversight board Chair and Member Rich Stinizzo, are putting significant political pressure on Council members to vote "NO" on legislation to place a referendum question on the November ballot amending the City Charter to ban gas drilling in the city. The ICA lobbying is completely inappropriate. That is neither their role nor their mandate in the affairs of the city.

The Council unanimously enacted an ordinance to do the very same last November 16th. The vote on the Charter question comes up this Wednesday.

All of this is being done at the direction of the Shale Gas industry. Publicly, shale gas industry spokes persons say, "who cares, we aren't drilling in the city anyway." Privately they seem to be singing a different song ...

Mr. Fitzgerald and his Shale Gas industry backroom friends want us to vote for him yet he doesn’t want the public to be allowed vote for themselves, for their health, for their safety and welfare. I put this question to Mr. Fitzgerald: What city neighborhood would you like to begin drilling operations in? 

Fitzgerald's county exec camaign, you may recall, stepped on a landmine when it turned out Fitzgerald was hitting up gas-industry execs for contributions -- even as he faulted his Democratic rival, Mark Patrick Flaherty, for being too tight with the business. (Shields' e-mail also revists that issue, blasting statements Fitzgerald made about Shields wife, also a gas-drilling opponent, in an e-mail to execs.)

But reached by phone this morning, Fitzgerald denies having "backroom friends" in the industry.  "I have asked the industry for support -- as people know -- but I've gotten very little," he says. And while Fitzgerald acknowledges opposing the ban, he says that's not a position being dictated by gas-industry execs. 

"My position on drilling is pretty clear," he points out: As his campaign website asserts, he favors imposing environmental regulations that allow drilling, subject to various environmental and infrastructure protections. 

Fitzgerald acknowledges that "I've seen a few council members, and I've told them I didn't think it was a good idea." But he denies that this constituted "political pressure ... My position on drilling is pretty clear."

Fitzgerald says he opposes a referendum partly as a "philosophical issue": He believes "even controversial decisions" should be made by elected officials. But he also says that a ban "sends a signal. And it hurts us when it comes to having a gas company headquartered Downtown. The big companies like Chevron are buying up smaller companies."

Fitzgerald Fitzgerald also reiterates that "there isn't going to be drilling in Pittsburgh for decades ... No gas company has told me, 'We really want to drill in Bloomfield.'"

City councilor Patrick Dowd, for one, acknowledges talking to Fitzgerald about the issue, but says the discussions were "informational -- about what was going on with the legislation."

"I know what his position his," says Dowd. "I don't need him to tell me."

Dowd -- who says he is currently undecided about putting the referendum on the ballot -- also says he's discussed the bill with McNees. That happened "at a ribbon-cutting for a natural-gas filling station in my district last week," he says.

Dowd said he and McNees talked generally about the growing impact of natural gas on the local economy, and that McNees did discuss some "technical concerns" about how the referendum would work. But "I don't think it was an inappropriate conversation," Dowd says. "It wasn't like 'You should vote no, or I'll put the screws to the city.'" In fact, he says, "This was the first conversation I've had with [an ICA member] about drilling. And they've had months and months to apply pressure if that's what they wanted to do." 

More on this story as further events warrant.

Generally, this space has had very little to say about the presidential aspirations of former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Frothy Mix). While our pals at Early Returns follow Santorum almost religiously -- is there any other way? -- we've generally just tried to avert our eyes. Unlike Santorum, after all, we respect the privacy rights of masochists. 

But this is too good to pass up: 

Rick Santorum, down on money and lagging in the polls, is turning to an old foe, columnist Dan Savage, to help fill his coffers and grab some headlines ...

Santorum [is] calling out Savage, using the columnist's controversial appearance on last week's Real Time With Bill Maher as a springboard into some retro attacks on Savage and the LGBT-rights movement he represents ...

During a panel discussion about the GOP candidates -- more specifically, a round of speculation about the sex life of the Bachmanns -- Savage, who's made his career on graphic sexual talk, said this (in jest):

"I sometimes think about fucking the shit out of Rick Santorum......he needs it. So, it's not, it's not just women we're talking about fucking. Like, let's bone that Santorum boy."

Savage, of course, is the syndicated sex columnist who, in retaliation for Santorum's anti-gay positions, helped redefine the Senator's name as a synomym for "the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex."

"I'm up for whipping up some santorum in Santorum," he told Maher's audience. 

Santorum has now launched a counteroffensive, blasting Savage on a conservative radio show and on his blog:

Savage and his perverted sense of humor is the reason why my children cannot Google their father's name. I took the high road for nearly a decade by not dignifying these mindless attacks, then even defending his 1st Amendment right to spew this filth. And to this day, liberals like Rachel Maddow serve as Savage's lackeys on national television, pushing his smut.

Enough is enough, and I'll keep fighting these attacks to ensure that the extreme lest [sic] doesn't win.

Nothing too unexpected there: Santorum doesn't blanch at policies that would ruin the family lives of same-sex couples ... but treading on a child's Google rights? That goes too far!

Still, the only real surprising thing about this post appears at the very bottom of the page -- where Santorum's site offers a link to its "privacy policy." So he's in favor of privacy now? Sounds like a flip-flop, ol' buddy.  

Equally predictable was Savage's rejoinder to Talking Points Memo -- in which he suggested that Santorum enjoyed playing the martyr:

"The Google thing has been good for him -- it's allowed him to portray himself as a victim in the style of Sarah Palin ... [I]f you look at his press over the last 18 months, grousing about his Google problem is his chief talking point."

That echoes a concern Savage voiced to me in March:

"[H]e's trying to play the Sarah Palin victim card and saying [in weepy voice] 'Look how they attacked me. I'm just a poor defenseless US Senator who was trying to take this man's child from him, and make sure gay sex and straight masturbation remain illegal ... and they made fun of me.'"

But if this really was an attempt by Santorum to gin up excitement about his campaign, it doesn't seem to be working. As I write this roughly 6 hours after the post was published, Santorum's blog post seems to have garnered exactly three responses -- one of which characterizes Santorum as a "mindless, robotic, right-wing zealot." The other urges Santorum to "keep fucking that chicken." 

(I should note that the author of that post -- a "Theo Potter" -- is no relation.)

I'm reprinting these responses below -- 

-- because I'm guessing they'll disappear sooner or later. But if anything says "campaign in disarray," it's a website that allows allegations of senatorial chicken-fucking to remain available for 5 hours after they are made. 

[ADDED (7/22/2011): Not only are these posts still visible on the site, but they've been joined by a handful of others, including one that calls him "pooplube," and another asserting that "the thought of you being Dan Savage's BITCH is pretty funny." Another commenter adds that "Who ever is managing your social media campaign is doing as great a job as you did as a senator." Which was sort of my point yesterday, of course ... only now, I wonder whether this is further proof of Savage's argument. If Santorum is trying hard to look like the victim here, leaving such posts up would be a good way to do it.]

Who is spreading online filth now, Senator?

The Heinz Endowments is encouraging Pittsburgh artists to take advantange of its newish fellowship program to help locals get residencies at this famed international artists' community in New Hampshire.

The fellowship program funds two slots set aside for artists from Allegheny County or any of nine surrounding counties. Fellowships cover all residency costs for two artists of any discipline to work for up to two months at MacDowell, located on 450 acres in Peterborough, N.H.

"We believe that we need to do much more to recognize and support the region's artists," Janet Sarbaugh, the Endowments' arts-and-culture senior program director, in a statement.

MacDowell, meanwhile, is leveraging the Endowments' contribution to "raise awareness of residency opportunities," says MacDowell development officer John Martin, by phone from the Colony's offices in New York City.

The catch: You're eligible for a fellowship only if you've already been accepted at MacDowell.

That's a challenge, given that MacDowell hosts just 250 artists a year, and that over the years artist residents have included such big names as Aaron Copland, Glenn Ligon, Suzan-Lori Parks and a former University of Pittsburgh grad student named Michael Chabon.

Still, i the Heinz Endowment fellowship's first year, 2010-11, Pittsburgh MacDowellites included visual artist and Carnegie Mellon assistant art professor Kim Beck as well as poet Joy KMT, who'll be at MacDowell come September.

MacDowell provides residents with accommodations, meals and private studio space, along with the opportunity to share ideas with other artists visiting from all over the world. 

Applications are encouraged in the following disciplines: architecture, film/video, interdisciplinary art, music composition, theater, visual art and literature.

The rolling deadlines are Sept. 15, Jan. 15 and April 15 of each year. "[T]he sole criterion for acceptance," says a MacDowell press release, "is talent."

For more information, see www.macdowellcolony.org/apply.

Below is a longer version of the interview we ran this week with Black Francis, a.k.a. Frank Black, of The Pixies fame. He plays a sold-out acoustic show at Club Cafe Saturday, July 22 at 8 p.m.

 

First, I want to ask about the upcoming album with Reid Paley, who played around Pittsburgh for a while. Everything I read about it makes it seem it was recorded pretty quickly. Was the idea to do an album also pretty spontaneous?

Yes, actually it was. It was extremely spontaneous. I was looking at [my] schedule and thinking, "I could do some recording in that town there for a couple days" -- which was Nashville. And I thought, "Well, I don’t want to do it all just myself, so I‘ll ask Reid if he wants to do some stuff." We got together in New York for a couple days and started it and then we finished it off there [in Nashville].

 

And does it alternate between songs written that you wrote and songs that Reid wrote?

We wrote them all together and we were singing them with the drive of The Byrds, I suppose.

The other release you have on deck is a Catholics boxed set. Where are you with that?

Well, it’s being put together and re-mastered. We’re just trying to figure out what shape of box it’s going in.

I noticed on The Pixies one that came out before it that the art work was very elaborate. Is it important that the boxed set itself be a new work instead of a compiling of back material?

No, the graphic artist guy was sort of known for his elaborate process, so the boxed set was of course very over the top. I would like to think I am taking some cue from him with regards to the new Catholics boxed set. I don‘t know it will be as over the top.

 

Do you have the same approach going through all the Catholics stuff as you did going through all The Pixies stuff?

I wasn’t very involved in compiling the Pixies stuff because it was all very established. With the Catholics stuff, all those tapes were in my possession and we had to go through them all and figure out if there was any bonus material in there. There was a little bit of work involved locating all the tapes, but I think we found everything.

 

Anything you’d like to note about rarities or stuff people wouldn’t expect to be in there?

 There are other versions [of songs]. There are a couple of demos. There are some songs that were never released, so-called bootleg kind of things. It’s all going to be compiled in an alphabetical order as opposed to separated off by album. It’s going to be, like, the first vinyl will be A through H, and then it will be I through M, and like that.

 

So why that approach, as opposed to chronological order or something more ordinary?

I don’t know. I like alphabetizing things, as far as songs are concerned. I have done it occasionally on actual albums before. I’ve done it many times in set lists. On the one hand, of course, alphabetizing things is a way of organizing them so you can find it I suppose, if you are looking through a list or through a library for example. The other reason to alphabetizing something, as a list of works ¾ in this case, a list of songs you are potentially going to listen to, or a set list, if you are going to perform them ¾ it’s a way of randomizing the process, as opposed to trying to tease out some sort of dramatic arc of the material. It’s a way to be cocky. "I don’t need to create a dramatic arc to the material. I can randomize it by alphabetizing it and the drama will be there already." That’s one way of looking at it. Another way is a pop song is a pop song. A pop song is two to three minutes long and that is the entity. The song has a beginning and it has a middle and it has an end, and that is the currency we are working with.

 

That seems like a much different approach than you’ve had on some of the albums you have released in the last couple years. There are a lot of theme albums and a few centered around more esoteric subject matters. I’m surprised you’d make a statement like that, where the song is the song is the song.

It just depends on what kind of mood you are in. It’s not fun for me to always have the same process, the same parameter. Parameters are nice as a way to organize something. Sometimes you want to be really precious about something and want to carefully place each thing so that the listener can experience it a certain way. But sometimes it’s good to mash it all up and say, "Now you’re all going to just stand there in alphabetical order." It’s also a way to get more on one CD [on the boxed set]. I was trying to max out the CD, make sure each CD was 72 minutes of music, and it’s a way of looking at a body of work, too. We’re not putting all the albums in the way they were originally heard. Everyone’s already got that. This is a way of saying, "Forget about all those albums, look at the whole body of work." To me, organizing it alphabetically is a way to draw attention to the whole body of work as opposed to this thing we do called the LP, where we put a certain amount of it on the pedestal. An album represents cohesion. As for this boxed set, we are trying to represent everything in total so you have to get away from the whole LP thing.

 

The number of albums you have released in the last ten years, between soundtracks and new studio stuff and odds and ends collections, is staggering. I had trouble counting them. Why are you so prolific? Why so much stuff? Is it because of the ease by which music can be distributed that you can easily get all that staff out?

I think that’s the way of a so-called indie artist. There are some indie artists release very little material and spread it over a long period of time and there are others that are busy bees, that are always getting stuff out. That’s the way of a certain type of artists, I shouldn’t say it‘s a matter of indie versus mainstream. You can look at Prince, who I would not call an indie artist. When he was recording consistently, he was constantly bringing out records. Van Morrison probably has tons of tapes. He comes out with a record every year. I think there is a certain kind of artist. There are some people who work on a regular basis and there are others that devise it up. I just happen to release a lot of things.

 

Are you ever afraid that, by releasing so many things, each product will not get the notice it deserves?

 I don’t really think anyone’s record "deserves" to get seen or heard. It’s sort of like, you deserve what you deserve, all you can do is play your best hand and if you are going to approach everything strictly from a marketing point of view, you could say it would probably do you well to release fewer records because that would work better with the marketing of music and the selling of music, but I am not that type of artist. It’s not that it’s an issue of integrity or anything like that. I like to sell music and it’s fun and I want to be successful because I like having money [but] I’m not interesting in pacing everything out so that I can maximize my sales every time I release something. And from an artistic point of few, I don’t want to sit around and think about this before I release it. I don’t want to release anything that might be not as good. There are some people who are really good self editors, I suppose, but I don‘t really work like that. I‘m not really interested in working like that. I feel like I already do a lot of self-editing in the creation process. I already go through a lot of self-editing, so to self-edit more doesn’t seem fun to me. It’s like painting pictures. I’d rather say, "I painted a bunch of pictures this summer! Here they are!" I don’t want to sit around and go, "Well…" Because then, you have to ask, is [the work] invalid? Is my last record less valid than the popular ones? I don’t know if it’s true. I don’t listen to music that way. Is Bob Dylan’s Self Portrait less valid than Blood on the Tracks? There are people who love Blood on the Tracks, the AllMusic guy, the Rolling Stone guy. You can read the writing of people who go on and on and on about Blood on the Tracks. Guess what? I don’t think Blood on the Tracks is that great! It’s not one of my favorite Bob Dylan records, but guess what? Self Portrait is! I love Self Portrait. Self Portrait is the one that got panned. People don’t even know what you are talking about sometimes when you mention Bob Dylan’s Self Portrait. Self Portrait is a really interesting record -- for me. It’s not invalid.

 

You are playing solo acoustic at Club Café. Would you like to give us a clue as to what songs to expect?

I don’t know what songs but I have decided to try to play at least one selection from every one of my formal LP releases, to get through the whole lot of them, as opposed a list of songs that I like to whatever. I am playing with [bassist] Eric [Drew] Feldman, so some of it will be dictated by what sounds good as a twosome.

 

You toured with The Pixies for a while. Will there ever be another Pixies record?

That is the $16,000 question, as they say. I don’t know if there will be another Pixies album or not. I am of that camp of people wanting one. I have fans all the time who are saying, "No, don’t do it. Don‘t mess with the legacy" or whatever. But I don’t know. I’m a working musician and I travel, so that’s kind of where I am coming from. Sometimes only playing material you recorded a really long time ago ¾ it feels a little limiting or something. It feels like there is not a new story to tell there. So far it’s going well. It doesn’t feel like I am in a golden oldies revue and it doesn’t feel like it’s being reviewed like that. We’ve been very fortunate in that we’ve been able to do so many years of touring on a back catalogue. Can it last another seven years of reunions? I don’t know.

[Note: Before I could ask the next question, the reception broke up and when Black called me back he used it as a chance to sing the chorus to "I‘m Not Dead (I‘m in Pittsburgh)," from his 2006 double album Fast Man, Raider Man, a song co-written by Paley.]

 

Will that be on the set list when you’re here?

I think the only time I’ve played it has been in Pittsburgh so it’s kind of a tradition. That’s really more of a Reid Paley lyric on that song. I wrote it with him and that’s a good song. I don’t really have any Pittsburgh connections, as Reid Paley [has], but in my own mind and in my own heart, I have my memories. They go right back to the early days with The Pixies, the late ’80s.

 

Can you tell me some of those memories? What sort of things come to mind when you think about Pittsburgh?

I remembering playing in some kind of side street club. It’s just a feeling when you get into Pittsburgh, too. You play there in the summer time and the grass, the weeds, are bursting through every crack in the sidewalk. Everything is growing, even though it is an urban landscape, even though it is an industrial landscape. It has this water and the bridges. The greenery is bursting through everything. And of course, if you are there in the wintertime it is freezing. It’s brutally cold and everything is dead and hard. Then it’s alive again. It one of those places that has one of those cycles.

 

Your work -- and a lot of the work of the first generation of artists that were deemed "alternative rock" -- always struck me as the triumph of substance over style. Do you think kind of approach permeates younger bands?

I don‘t want to get down on any contemporary acts or anything or any younger bands. There are some really good ones out there. Substance always wins over style. Style is kind of cool and I don’t want to criticize people who all do the same kind of style because then you wouldn’t have whatever, late-’70s ska bands or whatever, so style has a function on occasion but, for the most part it’s the substance that really wins. It’s bands that are caught up in themselves and caught up in their own thing. They are the ones that are really good. Sure, the Talking Heads may have been around the New York scene and they were around a lot of other pop-y new wave bands. But are there really a lot of bands that sound like the Talking Heads that are as good as the Talking Heads? There may be a lot of copycats. But are there a lot of Talking Heads-type bands? No, there is not. There is one band called Talking Heads and that’s the way they sound. They’re about substance. They are not about being part of the new wave scene.

 

Was that how you felt when alternative rock was taking off ¾ that the scene was not so important; it was still about the material itself?

I was less about the scene, especially the Boston scene, but certainly I was taking a lot of my cues from the previous generation. I would consider a rock generation to be about five years. The bands that I was taking a lot of my cues from when I started The Pixies were probably five years older than me. And that would be people like Gordon Gano of the Violent Femmes or Bob Mould of Husker Du or Sonic Youth. There is this little punk band called Angst that I was really into and these were all people who were a few years ahead of me and I was always buying their records and going to see them in the local clubs. So they were cut of a certain clothe.

 

Lastly, I wanted to ask about the ubiquity of the movie Fight Club. It seems The Pixies, for better or worse, lived out their initial lifespan without one instantly recognizable hit, but it seems "Where Is My Mind?" came to fill that role. That’s the Pixies song my dad knows. How do you feel about that?

I accept it. I accept it and everything that comes with it. There were not a ton of hits in the band, except for that track and maybe a few other ones.

It's been a long time since anyone's accused Pittsburgh of being a hotbed of activism. While other cities may host public demonstrations, engaged electorates, and multiple political parties, Pittsburgh has ... the Steelers, the Pirates, and the Penguins.

But a fledgling group, One Pittsburgh, is trying to give Pittsburghers a greater voice in the debate -- even if that means taking on the sports teams themselves. And it will be interesting to see what kind of player the new entity becomes.

One Pittsburgh is a campaign of Pittsburgh United, an advocacy group which has agitated for progressive legislation on the city level, like recently-passed regulations concerning diesel emissions at work sites.

In fact, it can be hard to tell where Pittsburgh United ends and One Pittsburgh begins. The groups have offices just down the hall from each other, and they boast the same cast of supporters -- a coalition of environmental, labor, and left-of-center faith-based organizations.

But while Pittsburgh United has focused largely on passing legislation on Grant Street, One Pittsburgh is about changing the entire political climate.

According to Kyndall Mason, one of a dozen people working full-time for the organization, One Pittsburgh was founded on "a desire to focus on corporate accountability."

One Pittsburgh routinely calls on corporations to "pay their fair share"; for example, the group recently held a protest outside PNC Park to denounce the Pirates for being incorporated in Delaware. (It's a common tax-avoidance strategy for companies headquartered in other states to be chartered in Delaware, which doesn't charge corporate income tax on them.) More recently, One Pittsburgh members spoke out at a recent community meeting to discuss UPMC's decision to abandon construction of a much-ballyhooed vaccine plant in Hazelwood. 

Issues like the "Delaware loophole"are abstract, and often only discussed by public-policy gurus (and the reporters who love them). But such arcane matters can have real-world effects by depriving governments of revenue -- and One Pittsburgh is seeking to make those connections clear. 

"We're trying to connect the dots for people," Mason says. "People are trying so hard just to get by that they don't have time to realize why it is so hard. For a lot of people, there's the feeling of 'These problems are so much bigger than me that I don't know what to do.'"

One Pittsburgh began taking root last year, says Barney Oursler of Pittsburgh United: "A couple unions decided they wanted to try and change the message about what's wrong with the economy and what can be done about it." Those unions were SEIU and UFCW -- which have advocated strongly on issues like a citywide prevailing-wage ordinance.

Union concerns about the overall political climate deepened early this year, as Republicans launched high-profile attacks on workers in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Washington D.C. But while union backing was the impetus for One Pittsburgh, Oursler says, other Pittsburgh United members saw the need  to shape not just new legislation, but a new political message. In too many debates about hard times and budget deficits, he says, "We're still blaming workers and poor people for wanting too much."

One Pittsburgh offers a countervailing persepctive: that times are hard because "Corporations are not paying their fair share in taxes; they're not paying good wages, and they're not creating the jobs they're promised." 

If the message is clear, the group itself can seem a bit amorphous: It's a standalone campaign, but relies heavily on outside sources for support. Unions are contributing personnel and non-monetary resources. (Mason, for example, is on loan from SEIU.) Other Pittsburgh United members are pitching in too -- and suggesting which issues and tactics to engage in. "The decisionmaking table involves all of those involved in Pittsburgh United," Oursler says. 

Given all that, it's no wonder there's been some speculation that One Pittsburgh might get caught up in local political battles. 

Pittsburgh United's previous initiatives, after all, were supported by city council's progressive faction, whose members oppose Mayor Luke Ravenstahl. Mason herself recently worked on the re-election campaign of city council president Darlene Harris, who narrowly survived a mayoral-backed effort to oust her. Too, One Pittsburgh is constituted as a 501(c)4 entity -- a nonprofit that is allowed to engage in lobbying and other political activities.

So could One Pittsburgh become part of an emerging local coalition of progressive politicians, funders, and advocacy groups?

"I can't tell you what we'll be doing in six months," Mason says -- let alone "what we'll be doing when Ravenstahl's up for reelection" in 2013. Mason says the 501(c)4 designation is just a way to give the organization lattitude for conducting, say, a voter-registration campaign sometime down the road. When organizers discuss initiatives these days, she says, "Honestly, Ravenstahl's name doesn't come up."

Indeed, One Pittsburgh has focused almost entirely on players in the private sector, rather than politicians. And the group has mostly been concerned with movement-building: In early summer, it carried on door-knocking campaigns around the city, talking about the sour economy and recruiting those who want to do something about it.

"Our focus is to create a groundswell, building support at a grassroots level," Mason says. "We can't just have [elected officials] say to us, 'You're just a handful of activist whackos.'"

The Speak Out for Good Jobs Now tour slogan is "rebuild the American Dream." And for two hours Monday night, congressional representatives heard from those whose dream, or that of someone they knew, had been shattered by lack of jobs.

"In every job I've ever worked at, it's been understaffed. It's stressful going to work every day knowing there's an infinite to-do list. But I'm considered one of the lucky ones," said Mike Heller. "Of my friends, only half of us are fortunate to have jobs. The other half are unemployed."

Of the 600 who packed the Kinglsey Center auditorium in East Liberty for the congressional listening tour sponsored by sponsored by ProgressiveCongress.org, many were less fortunate. And they let those who had come to listen -- Jackie Erickson, repping Sen. Bob Casey, and Corey O'Connor, representing Mike Doyle -- know it.

The discussion in Washington, O'Connor said, "shouldn't be on debt limits. It should be on getting good, quality jobs back to Western Pennsylvania."

Among those who spoke:

• Terry Miale, of Bridgeville: A 30-year employee of Verizon, Miale says that the company dissolved its contract with U.S. Airways after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, dissolving her job. "I work an $8 an hour, part-time job at Macy's. I'm on food stamps, my boyfriend pays the rent," she said. "This is not the American dream I signed up for."
• Georgeanne Koehler: In 2003, her brother Billy lost his job and health insurance, and access to health care for a heart condition. He was eventually hired as a pizza delivery driver, but unable to find a private health care plan; he was repeatedly denied for pre-existing conditions. On March 7, 2009, Billy died of cardiac arrest in his car on his way home from a shift. He was 57.
• Benita Johnson, of the North Side: Dropped out of school at the age 14 and worked to support her family. Obtained her bachelor's degree and worked for the U.S. Census Bureau in 2000 and 2010. When her work there ended, "I thought 'I have a bachelor's degree and four years of government experience, I'd be OK," she said. "I couldn't find a job." She was eventually offered a job by the federal government -- but it was ultimately cut due to funding issues. She's currently on unemployment. "If my unemployment runs out, I'll have to sell everything I own and move in with my brother," she said. "I thought if my own ancestors could survive slavery, I could survive this. But this is a different kind of slavery."

More than 30 organizations and citizen groups were present, including the Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network, One Pittsburgh and Action United.

"We should not be here begging for health care, begging for jobs," said the Rev. Richard Freeman, president of PIIN. "We own this country!"

Pittsburgh was the listening tour's 14th stop, and it continues across the country. Visit here to share your story with the tour.

Greetings!

Welcome to another installment of MP3 Monday. Today we bring you a track from Mothershaker. The Southern-fried rock band (with members from Pittsburgh and Cleveland, including sound engineer and former Dropkick Murphys mandolin player Ryan Foltz) recently released the Buzzard Sessions EP. The EP is four songs, recording in late 2009, back when the band was called Mothertrucker. Apparently that one was already taken, though.

The rest of the EP is available at the above-linked Bandcamp page for FREE if you like what you hear here. *Download link expired*

One month after local bicycling advocates, foundations and government officials began to discuss bringing a bike-sharing program to Pittsburgh, cycling advocates say they are teaming up with university researchers to figure out how a system might work here.

"It's exciting," says Scott Bricker, executive director of BikePGH, a local bike-advocacy group. "Now we're at step two. We're starting to figure out how this is going to happen."

Last month, representatives from B-cycle, a Wisconsin-based company that operates bike shares around the country, met with local officials to talk about how the short-term bike-rental systems function, and how launching one in Pittsburgh could benefit the city. The presentation earned high praise from the more than two dozen bicycling advocates, city planners and foundation officials who attended the meeting.

On July 8, Bricker sent a follow-up email to presentation attendees. The email announced that BikePGH is partnering with Carnegie Mellon University professor Robert Hampshire and a group of graduate students from CMU's Heinz College to develop a business plan for a Pittsburgh bike-sharing system. "Meanwhile," Bricker's message continued, "we are already exploring different business models and potential funding streams."

Hampshire could not be reached for comment. But Bricker tells City Paper that Hampshire and his students will be tasked with studying bike-sharing best practices around the world "to get more of a handle on how it can work" in Pittsburgh. Bricker says they will begin their research in the fall.

"There's still a lot of background work to do," says Bricker, noting that bike shares are very new. (The oldest one in the U.S. started slightly more than a year ago.) "There are a lot of question marks."

Especially when it comes to funding: How much money should come from local foundations? How much support should the city and county provide?

Bricker says no one knows the answers to those questions yet. But given last month's overwhelmingly positive reaction to the bike-sharing presentation, he's optimistic that enough people are motivated to make bike-sharing a reality here in Pittsburgh.

"It was surprising and refreshing that everybody got it and saw the value in it," Bricker says. "People after the meeting were saying, 'How do we make it happen?' rather than 'Why don't we put a stake in it?'"

Hoping to cast a vote against Marcellus Shale drilling this November ... and disappointed that Dana Dolney is not the Democratic nominee in the county executive race? 

You have another option:Tom Kawczynski.

Kawczynski, who is seeking to launch an independent run for Allegheny County Executive, might seem an unlikely drilling opponent. He's a former Republican who I first met volunteering with the 2008 presidential campaign of libertarian hero Ron Paul. 

Even so, Kawczynski says he favors a two-year drilling ban in county limits. 

"I went to Pitt and I went to CMU and I talked to professors there and they told me, 'Tom, this is not safe and you should not support this,'" Kawczynski says. "Then I looked at the financial issue that everyone talks about, and the fact is our schools are in financial crisis and we're not seeing any money from the gas that's being taken out of the ground.

"So I think it's in the best interest of Allegheny County to stop this. Not permanently, but until we determine whether or not this can be done safely, and whether or not the people of Allegheny County will actually benefit."

That's not the only unorthodox part of Kawczynski's energy platform.  He also wants to invest county funds in alternative energy, specifically wind turbines. Installing wind turbines, he says, would allow the county to produce its own energy and make enough revenue to allow it to be "tax independent to have the ability to meet the needs of the people who live here."

And while he doesn't have concrete numbers, Kawczynski estimates that a $700 million investment based on current energy costs would yield roughly $55 to $60 million annually -- or about $2 billion over a 20-year period.

"You can do a lot with that extra revenue," Kawczynski says. "You can fund Port Authority, you can fund small business revitalization and community development projects.

Energy, he says, is "the best place for government to invest because it doesn't lose money."

On another hot-button issue, Kawczynski says he would move forward with the controversial property-tax reassessment process. However, he says, he would increase the homestead exemption to the first $20,000 of a home's value. (The current exemption is $15,000.)

Kawczynski says the increased exemption "will allow us to offset the impact to some folks" in lower- and middle-income bracks with higher property values -- "while forcing the guy whose $400,000 home is assessed at $150,000 to pay his fair share."

(For more on Kawczynski's plans, check out his intermittently-functioning website.)

He said he decided to get in the race before the primary because he didn't think either Democrat Rich Fitzgerald or Republican D. Raja, offered voters much of a choice.

"Whether Raja gets elected or whether Fitzgerald gets elected, the average voter in Allegheny County is not going to see a difference in terms of the policies that will be enacted or in how government operates," Kawczynski says.

While Kawczynski is ready to roll with a platform, he still needs signatures to win a spot on the ballot. The county requires him to compile election peittions with 2,990 signatures: He says he's reached about half that number, with just over two weeks until the August 1 deadline.

Kawczynski says he'd have an easier time collecting signatures -- and raising money -- if he hadn't taken a hard line on gas-drilling. That position alienated him from Tea Party sympathizers he once allied with. ("I thought the government bailout [of the banking industry] was a load of crap," he says.) But when he approached old friends, he says, his stance on Marcellus Shale "absolutely killed me."

Of course, his willingness to tax the rich, and to invest public money in wind energy, probably wouldn't help him gain Tea Party votes in November. But he says it's the gas drilling issue that hurt the most.

"They were yelling back at me, 'drill, baby, drill,'" says Kawczynski. "I guess I understand why they feel that way, because look, natural gas is a valuable commodity and it will probably become more so. But the process through which it's being extracted is bad.

"Getting people to hear that is hard because anytime you have trees or clean air or clean water vs. money, money is going to unfortunately win."

That Bill Callahan … what a gentleman. Two years ago the Drag City singer/songwriter adorned us Pittsburghers twice within a few months: first at a crammed Paul's CDs (one attendee even fainted -- due to the claustrophobic viewing conditions or Callahan's soulful croon? We'll never know) and second, well, the second show never happened. The electricity at the Thunderbird Café (and all of Lawrenceville) stalled due to a ridiculous thunderstorm. No worries, as the man loves us enough to return in support of Apocalypse, his new album. To add, last Friday's show was housed at the sculpture court behind the Carnegie Museum of Art. Longtime Callahan or Smog fans who were absent should quit reading -- you'll hit yourself hard for missing this one!

Following the Ladybug Transistor gig last Thursday, this was the Carnegie Museum of Art's second outside concert of the summer, thanks to folks at the Andy Warhol Museum's Sound Series. Let's demand more shows at this open space! Picture a spacious stage underneath a brick overpass with the Carnegie Mellon School of Engineering building lit in the background. The crowd of 20-somethings (mostly couples) relaxed on the shaded stone steps and enjoyed the perfect summer evening alongside a scattering of older folks. I'm honestly having difficulties manufacturing a negative aspect of the night -- even the sound levels were perfect.

Austin, Texas' Hidden Ritual switched their echo pedals on around 8:00. Their mixture of Beat Happening-like simplicity and darker Echo and the Bunnymen songwriting alone made the $15 ticket worth it. The guitarist's delayed vocals and massive guitar sound (pocketed through his tiny amp) added to their dark tone, but what I dug most was the bassist's staccato lead bass lines. The drummer's repetitious Boom-CHE-Boom-Boom beat was aided with a pair of bongos substituting for toms…and just for the record, it takes a real man to replace a set of drum toms with a set of bongos. Touché!

Part Johnny Cash, part Mr. Rogers, the white-suited Callahan and his backing band soon approached the lit stage after a Kraftwerk-soundtracked set change. For nearly two hours, the extremely gentle moments contrasted with the intensity and fascination of a tightrope walker balancing with no net below him. Callahan stuck to his acoustic guitar, while the other guitarist (who looked a bit ticked off the entire show) noised these panicked flourishes to the songs -- as if a custom "Apocalypse" guitar pedal lay at his feet. The cymbal scraping, hand drumming, and improv sound textures proved the bare-footed drummer's subtle ability to utilize every inch of his miniature kit. Mr. Callahan chose the right musicians to layer his songs to life.

The set concentrated on his new album along with an unexpected number of old Smog tunes -- in fact, his set list spoiled us by the end. Favorites like "In the Pines" and a forceful "Say Valley Maker" appeared along side new songs like the grooving "America." After urging the crowd to cheer for an encore, Callahan granted us with "The Well," "The Sycamore," and ended with "Blood Red Bird" from the Red Apple Falls album. With the exception of a few random requests here and there, the crowd was speechless.

Bill Callahan could've fulfilled his contractual obligations with a few Apocalypse tunes and call it a day, but instead he granted us a special night of music impossible to replicate in any bar or venue. With recent bookings like Low, Keren Ann and Ted Leo, the Warhol Sound Series is bringing sweet sounds for our ears, and I expect more in the future. To end, I'd like to add that the crowd in attendance at this was probably one of the best-looking groups of concertgoers I've seen at a show. Seriously, Pittsburgh, you're looking good!