What the Steelers mean to me- by Tom H.

I usually take a large amount of crap from my non-sports loving friends, of which I have quite a few of.
And that's ok.
I can take it.
But let me try to explain.
I'm from a tiny town in Pennsylvania, as I'm sure most of you know. It's lumber territory. It's coal mining territory. It's steelworkers territory. Very blue collar.
Very hard-working community.
I remember as a kid watching the Steelers on tv with my dad. With the black and white uniforms, the decal on only one side of their helmets, the absolute bad-ass defense.
One of my first memories of the Steelers was when they were on the cover of Time Magazine.

I remember cutting all the pictures out and making my own Steelers montage that my dad hung on the refrigerator.
My friends and I would play sandlot football games and we all wanted to be the Steelers. We spent more time figuring out who would be the Steelers than we actually spent playing.
When playoff time came around, the entire town went Steeler-crazy. Posters, cardboard cutouts, non-stop football talk from strangers.
What I'm trying to say is it's forever ingrained in me.
But I've only recently come to realize how deep the love of the Steelers runs in others. Just off the top of my head, I can count 2 Steelers bars here in Sacramento. I can't even count one 49er or Raiders bar here. I'm sure they're around, but I don't know of them.

The Terrible Towel.
Yeah, it's hokey. It's played. Whatever. I've only just recently read the history of the Towel.
The Steelers' longtime announcer, Myron Cope, wanted to come up with some gimmick the fans could rally around. Originally, he came up with a Chuck Noll (long time head coach, and winner of 4 Super Bowls) mask with the Steelers emblem on it. But it was deemed too expensive to produce, so he came up with a yellow-gold towel. After the Towel took off, and everyone wanted one, he signed over all copyrights to the Allegheny Valley School, a school for developmentally disabled and autistic children. To date, the sales of the Towel have generated over 3.2 million dollars for the school, which Cope's autistic son was a resident of. Astronauts have taken the Towel into space, and one was even left on the summit of Mt. Everest.


I've met more Steelers fans in California than I can count. The Dallas Cowboys call themselves "America's Team". Well, I can't think of ONE Dallas Cowboys bar here in Sacramento. Or anywhere else for that matter. I have to think that the Steelers are the "New America's Team".

I know, I can almost hear you saying "Geez, Tom, you're talking about a game played by a bunch of millionaire crybabies". And yeah, you're right.
But, for me, it goes deeper than that.
I watched the Super Bowl at my friends Dan and Erin's house. Both are Steelers fans, and it was a LOT of fun watching with them and their friends. (edit: There was a lot of talk before the Super Bowl that no one cared about a championship game played by two small-market teams. Well, this past Super Bowl was the second most-watched program in TV history, second only to the final episode of MASH.) There was a lot of yelling at the tv, jumping around, burying our faces in our hands when it didn't look good.
A few minutes after the game had ended, I went out into the driveway and called my dad. We relived the game, talked about how we can finally breathe again. We laughed and talked about the final play.
And suddenly I was twelve years old again, cutting pictures out of Time Magazine, reconnecting with my dad over something as trivial as a football game.
When I was growing up, I was into music. I was in the marching band, and started a punk rock band. All stuff he didn't understand, I'm sure. But the one thing we could always bond over was the Steelers. The Steelers gave me a chance to be a part of something bigger than our little town. More than any other sports team could. I'm proud to be a part of Steeler Nation, and I'm grateful to my dad for introducing me to something that maybe he didn't even realize the scope of.
The Steelers were, and are, the one thing I can relate to my dad about. Or, probably more specifically, my dad could relate to me about.
So, there you go.
I'm a Steelers fan.
Always will be.

R.I.P. Lux Interior

Well, I suppose it's inevitable.
The heroes you grew up looking up to getting older at the same rate you are.
They eventually start passing away.

Today, Lux Interior died.

I was a fan of the Cramps starting in high school. The first recording I heard of theirs was Gravest Hits.
Human Fly.
I was blown away. There was no bass guitar. Didn't need one.
The picture of them on the cover was so.... weird.
I'd never seen anything like them before. And the picture on the back of them playing live just looked like sheer chaos. Even to this day, I'm not sure where Lux is in the picture. I've always thought he was in the pajamas-looking outfit and climbing over the seats, which was even cooler.
I never got to see them till I moved to California. The first time was at the now-defunct I-Beam in San Francisco about 1985.
My friends and I were in line out front when Lux walked right by us.
He was bigger than life, and wearing a gold suit. He actually fit right in with the Haight St. crowd.
I had a cassette of my band Capt. 9's & the Knickerbocker Trio with me, just in case I got to meet one of them. Here was my chance.
My friends and I jumped out of line and ran after Lux, yelling his name.
He turned around and greeted us with a huge smile. Wasn't expecting that!
We ran up to him and told him what huge Cramps fans we were, blah, blah, blah. Stuff I'm sure he heard a million times from a million kids. But he was genuinely flattered. We told him it was our first time seeing them and he said he hopes we enjoy the show and asked our names and shook our hands. He started to turn to walk away, when I suddenly remembered my cassette!
I said, "Lux, I want to give you a copy of my band's cassette. I hope you'll like it!" and handed him the tape.
He could have jammed it in his pocket, muttered "thanks" and kept walking and that would have been good enough for me.
But he didn't.
He looked at the cover, said the name of the band out loud (which was a thrill right there! Lux Interior saying my band's name!) and started laughing at the song titles, reading each one out loud. " 'I'm a Pig'! Ha! That's great! 'Fireman's Stomp'! Haha!"
He was so freakin' nice to us when he didn't have to be. That's stuck with me all these years. THAT'S how you treat fans. With respect. Like it's because of them that you're where you are. Not condesention. Not with an "I've heard this shit a million times. Tell me I'm great and go away" attitude.
He was one of the absolute all time great rock n roll front men. The Cramps put on some of the best shows I've ever been to.
One of punk rock's truly "nice guys".
He'll be missed.

As my own stupid little tribute, here's a video of Capt. 9's & the Knickerbocker Trio performing the Cramps "I Ain't Nuthin' But A Gorehound" in an alley in Williamsport PA sometime in 1983.