HAVING A YOUNG MAYOR IS FAIRLY FREAKISH, BUT TO REALLY PUT PITTSBURGH ON THE MAP WE NEED A MAYOR WITH PRONOUNCED CONGENITAL PHYSICAL PECULIARITIES, A REAL CIRCUS FREAKLast week, Pittsburgh's Mayor Luke Ravenstahl landed on the front page of the New York Times (and this Web site was cited in that story). Last night, he appeared on David Letterman's show. The last Pittsburgh mayor to appear with Mr. Letterman was Sophie Masloff.
Ravenstahl and Masloff succeeded mayors who were exceedingly well-liked and, by any objective criteria, better qualified to lead the city of Pittsburgh than either Ravenstahl or Masloff. But neither of their predecessors, Bob O'Connor and Richard Caliguiri, ever landed on David Letterman's show.
The truth of the matter is that Ravenstahl and Masloff landed on Mr. Letterman's show for only one reason: To put it in terms that are politically correct, they were and are atypical. Masloff was a 70-something grandmother; Ravenstahl, at 26, is perhaps the youngest-ever mayor of a major U.S. city.
You see, the only way to draw attention to Pittsburgh on a national scale is to have a mayor that is a sideshow attraction.
There is nothing wrong with that, and I say we need to exploit it. What difference does it make how we get the attention so long as we get it? But my question is, why are we limiting ourselves to mayors who are sideshow attractions only because of their age?
What we really need to put us on the map is a mayor with pronounced congenital physical peculiarities, a circus freak of genetic-mutation proportions, a human oddity, an unfortunate mistake of nature.
Western Pennsylvania has sports teams that fit this description (e.g., the Pirates); roads (e.g., McKnight Road, Bates Street); even entire neighborhoods (e.g., Oakland). But none of these can run for mayor.
Is there any question that a two-foot tall mayor would be a world-class celebrity, and that having such a mayor would provide publicity to Pittsburgh that it otherwise wouldn't get? The question scarcely survives its statement.
Admittedly it would be preferable to be known for some accomplishment unique to the region such as, oh, being the steel capital of the world. But Pittsburgh has no such accomplishments any longer, as much as we try to delude ourselves. So, for the next mayoral election I say, "circus freaks only need apply."
