This past weekend I drove to Pittsburgh with two buddies of mine. We left Friday at 1 PM and took a straight shot on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to The Iron City with no stops. My driving was only mildly scary to the passengers — which is a good thing to hear. Personally I thought I did a decent job with minimal stunt work. Upon our arrival we checked into the Holiday-Inn Express in South Side. The prerequisite extra cot was brought it to prevent the frightening possibility of The Accidental Touching Of Your Bunkmate’s Skin When Sharing A Bed. This did not prevent the other dreaded fear from occurring — The Accidental Breathing Of Polluted Air Fouled By Your Bunkmate’s Bodily Functions. Nice. Anyway, the evening began at The Grand Concourse where everyone was concerned about my formal clothing (American Eagle jeans, Banana Republic dark grey tee, brown Diesel strap sneaks). I fit in perfectly, of course. There’d been earlier talk that I would stick out like a sore thumb. Not. As for the food, they had the best oysters I’d ever slurped. Mmmm! I went with the New York Strip Steak for its maximum protein potential. From there we journeyed down the South Side bar scene to imbibe heavily at Smokin’ Joes, a kind of pool hall (albeit with only one table) beer joint. Our waitress looked like someone out of the show The O.C. We met up with the brother of one of my travel partners and the college buddy & wife of the other. From there we walked to a hole in the wall place called Bar Eleven. Bartenders were dressed as Santa Clause and blew fire into the air. Every drink seemed to come with a free little plastic toy. Hello? Choking hazard? At one point a machine was blowing foam around to give things a Christmas snow look. One of my friends wanted to find out how one of two girls sitting at a dilapidated pool table acquired the string of beads she was wearing. I asked. She told me the Santa bartender gave them out. Seeing as I was already out of questions to ask, I then inquired as to their plans for the weekend and if they happened to involve Ozzfest. The bead-wearing girl answered again: ”What’s that?” I replied, ”Oh, this festival with music.” Then things turned ugly when she responded with ”You know, we’re not STUPID.” I wanted to say, ”Are you sure?” but instead I muddled through with ”I was being sarcastic” — which was not as fulfilling as saying something wry like ”That’s funny… you look stupid.” I don’t need to be ducking from the flying b**ch slaps, however, so mission accomplished. The prettier, non-bead wearing girl told me her friend had drank too much. They departed quickly and were gone. Everyone accused me of running them off. I call it Mean Drunk Reduction Best Practices.


The next morning we crawled out of bed, waved away aforementioned noxious fumes, showered, and enjoyed the famous Holiday Inn Continental Breakfast. This was better than others I’ve had before. I had the Quaker brand Plain Oatmeal mixed with peanut butter, peach yogurt, and two hard-boiled eggs (white only) along with coffee and orange juice. If that repulses you, please let me know so I can cross you off my list. After liberally slathering ourselves with SPF 45 sunscreen, we left the confines of the hotel and drove the 40 some-odd minute drive to the concert grounds. We hung out in the parking lot and drank lots of Yuengling Lite. We entered about an hour before Rob Zombie was to take the stage and got adjusted to sitting under the hot baking sun. Actually, we found some shade under the trees near the second stage during Rob