Ah, Pittsburgh. I wish I was still there. You cannot underestimate how difficult it is to wind down from five days of being a rock star. This year I took the day after we returned off work, just to attempt to come down to earth.
I could tell you stories of 200 people taking over a bar, forcing the lone bartender to call in three buddies to help out; of drinking Iron City beer out of Aluminum Bottles while eating a Primanti Brothers sandwich (Meat of your choice, Cheese, Fries, Slaw, and Tomatoes all between two pieces of bread); of dancing in a church-converted-into-Techno club named “The Sanctuary”; or wearing a feather boa at a party held in an old jail. But I won’t tell you those stories.

I could also tell you stories of women lifting their shirts to flash my camera at that Church techno club; of partying at the Andy Warhol museum and two-fisting in front of Warhol’s painting of the Last Supper; of walking through “John Waters Presents The Porn of Andy Warhol” exhibit, and seeing the original Polaroid photo of OJ Simpson that Warhol took to base his painting on displayed innocuously among the porn; of flinging KitChing bars into the audience while breaking my record of a year ago by swearing EIGHT times in 60 seconds during our “Year in Review” presentation; of riding in a charter bus which somehow made it down a narrow four-block street with an inch of clearance on both sides, and only through the grace of God not hitting any of the cars; or of sitting in the lobby until 4 am talking to everyone after we got back from the bars. But I won’t tell you those stories either.
I could possibly tell you stories of a guy from our fine state drinking 4 Tequila shots in 10 minutes, and then turning away a beer for the first time in the five years I’ve known him; of another guy from Nebraska who drank so much he was still intoxicated at 2:30 the next afternoon; of me somehow drinking just as much as those two gentlemen and not being drunk; of meeting hundreds of wonderful people from all across the nation and sharing stories and good times with them; of drinking beer out of a giant beer bong at the bar; of stealing food from a wedding reception at 3:30 am; or of going to Mount Washington to take photos at the lookout point at 2:30 am (shown above) and having two nice young ladies from nearby Slippery Rock University walk up and want to be in photos with us because they were majoring in stripping and needed practice. I’m not telling you those stories though. I’m not showing you those photos either.
And I could tell you about sitting in the lobby of the Omni with a large group, then quietly disappearing to the other group of late-night lobby partiers with my new friend from Florida, and how the rest of the group celebrated thinking they had finally outlasted me — only to head to the elevator and find me sitting on the floor with that friend, or of how pissed they were to learn that I had once again outlasted them. But I’m not telling you that story for anything in the world. No sir.
Because while those stories are all entertaining, you really had to be there to get the feeling of awesomeness, and no amount of blathering by some hack writer like myself can convey that. All I can tell you is that I wish I had one more night there. Just one more. I’m not greedy. One more damn night, is that so much to ask? But alas, it was not to be. There’s always next summer in San Francisco to look forward to, where I’ll have four more nights. To that, I say a great big loud “You Bet”.