Fierce Anticipation: March 13-15
.
a blogumn by Ryan Dixon
The Existential Despair Edition or: A Chronicle of a Fugitive Weatherman, the Letters of Samuel Beckett and the Ignominy of the Pittsburgh Pirates
FIERCELY ANTICIPATING
The Continuing Criminal Exploits of Jay Patrick, the Felonious Weatherman
Having been born and raised near the small city of Johnstown, located in the heart of Western Pennsylvania, I know of one unchanging rule to which the area always abides: the local weatherman is a near deity.
Charged with revealing the whims of a climate that can go from frigid to nearly tropical within a period of several hours to an ever eager (at least according to the ratings), yet nervous (when a snow storm approaches) populous, his influence is that of a modern day Oracle at Delphi.
Of course, in Western Pa to only be a weatherman is to not exist at all. Unlike Los Angeles, where weathermen with names like Dallas Raines and Johnny Mountain are respected and listened to, those who dare enter the borders of Pennsylvania with the hope of delivering climate news must not only hold a degree in meteorology, but must also be intimately familiar with the high-tech, cutting edge weather forecasting technology that each station advertises with the same enthusiasm as Steve Jobs introducing a new Apple product.
So it is no surprise that continuing scandalous saga of one Jay Patrick Holcomb, aka “Jay Patrick”, the laconic former chief meteorologist at Johnstown’s WJAC Channel 6, the area’s NBC affiliate, remains one of infinite fascination.
While 2003 will always be remembered as the start of the Iraq war, it was also the year the weatherman formerly known as Jay Patrick started his own war… with the criminal justice system. In May of that year he quit his job at Channel 6 after his wife filed for divorce, a Cassandra-like harbinger for the really bad weather to come. Then, as June and high temperatures reaching into the upper 90’s arrived, not only was he charged with bouncing a $6,500 child support check, but he was also put on five months’ probation after a judge found him guilty for violating a restraining order and visiting his estranged wife’s work place.
Fast forward to November. When most people were busy shivering away in long grocery store aisles holding overpriced turkeys, Patrick was arrested at JFK Airport for traveling outside of his local Pennsylvania county of residence without permission (he was returning from Kiev in the Ukraine). And, as 2003 turned into 2004, he entered a no contest plea to five charges of sexually abusing a young girl and was placed under house arrest while awaiting sentencing.
For most mere mortals, these travails would be enough for them to abandon all hope and slink away, head bowed in shame, to prison. But not for the Oracle of Johnstown. Perhaps finding cover under a blustery late-winter storm, our dear Mr. Patrick, wearing his court-provided ankle bracelet, fled Cambria County and then the country in March 2005 and returned to Kiev.
Even with the moniker of “fugitive” thrust upon his shoulders, Patrick was undaunted. Most likely using his position as the former weatherman at the 96th biggest TV market in the U.S. as a selling point, Patrick tried to convince a Ukrainian communications company to develop their own “weather channel.” It can only be assumed that Patrick hoped that the plan’s success would catapult him back to his rightful place as a grandmaster of climate prognostication.
Unfortunately, his dream of forging an Eastern European weather empire came crashing down last week when Patrick was arrested in Kiev while sporting the traditional facial feature adopted by child molesters everywhere: the half grown-in mustache, or as its more famously known: the molestache*.
Under the custody of Federal Marshals, Patrick was flown to New York City on Sunday and now sits in a Manhattan detention center, awaiting extradition to Pennsylvania.
For the city of Johnstown, which has seen far too many bad days (the infamous floods of 1889, 1936 and 1977, constant economic turmoil, being voted the #1 place where people would least like to live and the racist Sarah Palin “monkey” rally) and not nearly enough good ones (Slap Shot and All The Right Moves being shot within the city limits and my own birth at one of its hospitals), it seems that the Jay Patrick saga is just one more black mark on a decent city that doesn’t deserve so many hexes.
But perhaps this strange and sad saga will, unwittingly, allow a glimmer of sun to shine upon Johnstown. While his criminal fornications will never enter the A-list in the annals of true crime (probably not the B or C-list either), it would surely serve as an inspiration to all the citizens of Johnstown if, upon one cool and breezy Friday evening, they were to turn on their TV’s and see a picture of their beautiful city inserted in next to Ann Curry as she introduces a Dateline NBC story about a small city in Western Pa that housed a weatherman with big dreams and an even bigger arrest record.
*Since it’s no secret that the majority of child molesters spend a good deal of their time online, you’d think that at least one of them would create a message board that encourages halfway decent facial grooming.
KINDA WANNA READ
The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume 1, 1929-1940
If a child molesting, fugitive weatherman hasn’t dampened your Friday spirits, how about 800 pages of the collected letters of Samuel Beckett? In a true publishing event, Cambridge University Press has released the first of four proposed volumes of letters written by the most influential and greatest playwright of the 20th Century.
Thankfully, Beckett’s own supreme novelistic and theatrical brilliance seems to have translated seamlessly into his correspondences with the likes of James Joyce and Sergei Eisenstein. This work is required reading for anyone who wants an epistolary history of Modernism or, considering the volume’s girth and bulk, a quick and convenient exercise to bulk up your biceps.
In Bookstores Now
WOULDN’T GO IF YOU PAID ME… UNLESS THEY START WINNING
The 2009 Pittsburgh Pirates
If the Pittsburgh Steelers winning their record sixth Super Bowl championship wasn’t enough to satiate Pittsburgh sports fans, the chances are high that, by the end of the year, the great city of Pittsburgh will have one other major sports record to call its own. If all goes as planned (and there is, sadly, little reason to doubt that it won’t) Major League Baseball’s Pittsburgh Pirates will finish, sometime in early October, their 17th consecutive losing season and officially hold the record for the most consecutive losing seasons of any team in ANY sport.
Of course many people will say that Pirates’ fans really have no right to complain. Pittsburgh sports has done very well for itself recently: Two Super Bowl titles in four years, the Penguins competing in last year’s Stanley Cup finals, and both Pitt and Penn State football having exceptional seasons.
And sports fans don’t abandon their teams after one, two or even ten losing seasons like you would a TV show after it “jumps the shark” or a movie series when it “nukes the fridge” (Dear Mr. Lucas and Mr. Spielberg, thanks for making a film that created a new phrase for “awful”). Fans hold on to the good times — for example, those Pirates teams from 1990-92 that came so agonizingly close to making it to the World Series — hoping that the memories stay strong enough to last them through the bad times.
But how many years of losing can one fan base put up with before they just stop caring?
In the case of the Pittsburgh Pirates, if history is any indication, at least for a little bit longer. While the legendary string of futility that plagued the Pittsburgh Steelers throughout the first half of the 20th Century is well-documented, many people seem to forget that the Pirates have fielded bad teams for far many more years than good ones.
Yes, the Pirates have won five World Series titles, nine N.L. Pennants, have had the honor of fielding the first all-minority lineup in 1971 and count a number legendary Hall-of-Fame players on their all-time franchise roster, but they’ve also endured a 33-year, mid-20th century drought without a pennant (and are currently about to finish another 30-year period without one), the drug trials of 1985 and of course, the “skinny” Barry Bonds who, despite winning the MVP for the Buccos in 1990 and 1992, was still a jerk even without the ‘roids. Need another sign of our checkered past? How about the nickname? The reason that the Pirates were called the Pirates in the first place (way back in 1891) was because they were accused of being “piratical” in their effort to sign (some would say steal) players from other teams.
So I suppose instead of dreading the seemingly inevitable coronation of this epic and historic losing streak, Pirates fans should embrace it as part of their wonderfully dysfunctional history. Yes, the Pirates are bad a lot more often than not, but when they’re good, they shine like glittering black and gold doubloons. Ahoy, Mateys!
Bizarrely enough, my hometown also has a notorious weatherman. Bob Richards started out as a beloved and fairly accurate weatherman. He and the sports guy were super-popular and even did a series of well-received Blues Brothers parody commercials in which they played the "News Brothers." but then it came out that Bob was having an affair, and then a judge had to issue a restraining order against him in order to get him to stop stalking his ex-mistress. Then his ex-mistress played one of the many harrassing phone calls he had left her during an interview with two local shock jocks. The next day Bob flew up into the air in his private plane and nose-dived it into the ground in one of the most dramatic suicides St. Louis has ever seen.
Here's the wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Richards_(meteor…
And here's the less clean version of the story from a fellow St. Louis native: http://www.byroncrawford.com/2005/09/weatherman_t…
That was an amazing weatherman story. I think a great idea for a book would be an anthology collecting all of the most bizarre and frightening weathermen stories out there. It could make a great stocking stuffer.
Byron crawfords information regarding the Bob Richards story is most inaccurate. The basic idea is accurate, however, he had an affair. The mistress had an affair with a married man who wore a wedding ring on-air……..if she didn't know she was an idiot. I was the last to talk and see Bob before he left and 30 minutes later killed himself. The report was on the news in the am, not in the pm as Byron reports, they did not get the facts wrong. Accuracy in reporting is important. Karlee Stratton Edwards
tommyandkarlee@yahoo.com
Bizarrely enough, my hometown also has a notorious weatherman. Bob Richards started out as a beloved and fairly accurate weatherman. He and the sports guy were super-popular and even did a series of well-received Blues Brothers parody commercials in which they played the "News Brothers." but then it came out that Bob was having an affair, and then a judge had to issue a restraining order against him in order to get him to stop stalking his ex-mistress. Then his ex-mistress played one of the many harrassing phone calls he had left her during an interview with two local shock jocks. The next day Bob flew up into the air in his private plane and nose-dived it into the ground in one of the most dramatic suicides St. Louis has ever seen.
Here's the wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Richards_(meteor…
And here's the less clean version of the story from a fellow St. Louis native: http://www.byroncrawford.com/2005/09/weatherman_t…
That was an amazing weatherman story. I think a great idea for a book would be an anthology collecting all of the most bizarre and frightening weathermen stories out there. It could make a great stocking stuffer.
Byron crawfords information regarding the Bob Richards story is most inaccurate. The basic idea is accurate, however, he had an affair. The mistress had an affair with a married man who wore a wedding ring on-air……..if she didn't know she was an idiot. I was the last to talk and see Bob before he left and 30 minutes later killed himself. The report was on the news in the am, not in the pm as Byron reports, they did not get the facts wrong. Accuracy in reporting is important. Karlee Stratton Edwards
tommyandkarlee@yahoo.com
Ryan, if they indeed make it into a book, it will be my Christmas gift to you along with the beef stick you so dearly love.
That would be the greatest Christmas gift since Mary gave birth to Jesus all those years ago.
Ryan, if they indeed make it into a book, it will be my Christmas gift to you along with the beef stick you so dearly love.
That would be the greatest Christmas gift since Mary gave birth to Jesus all those years ago.
Ryan,
You forgot about the success of the Pitt basketball team, which has ended each of the past 8 years in the top 25, has been to 7 Big East final games in 9 tournaments, has won 2 of those tourneys, and ended this year at no. 2 in the AP poll. Of course, they also fall flat on their face in the NCAA tourney every year, so the picture not all beer and Skittles!
The new stadium has helped the Bucs attendance, which is higher since 2001 than it was from 1993 to 2000, despite neither of those periods being successful.
Jim,
I had mentioned Pitt basketball in earlier drafts of this blogumn, but it was cut out in an effort to make this post shorter than 10,000 words. But thanks for providing those facts, seeing them all together makes Pitt basketball's accomplishment even more impressive. And, if they make it to the Final Four or win the championship, then I think Pittsburgh would have a serious shot at reclaiming its late 70's mantel of being the "City of Champions."
Ryan,
You forgot about the success of the Pitt basketball team, which has ended each of the past 8 years in the top 25, has been to 7 Big East final games in 9 tournaments, has won 2 of those tourneys, and ended this year at no. 2 in the AP poll. Of course, they also fall flat on their face in the NCAA tourney every year, so the picture not all beer and Skittles!
The new stadium has helped the Bucs attendance, which is higher since 2001 than it was from 1993 to 2000, despite neither of those periods being successful.
Jim,
I had mentioned Pitt basketball in earlier drafts of this blogumn, but it was cut out in an effort to make this post shorter than 10,000 words. But thanks for providing those facts, seeing them all together makes Pitt basketball's accomplishment even more impressive. And, if they make it to the Final Four or win the championship, then I think Pittsburgh would have a serious shot at reclaiming its late 70's mantel of being the "City of Champions."
The sad state of television is, that back in 2003, Johnstown was a great market for a decent meteorologist to land a job. In Johnstown, the weatherman was almost as much of a part of your home as a pet or even a lamp. However, around the time of Jay's downfall, this has all changed. Now, it is simply a place for kids to get their first TV straight out of college. Why? Because of the almighty dollar. These people are cheap for stations to hire… usually, making less than $20,000. Why should I trust this new guy who will be gone in six months, when weatherunderground.com will be there for me in an instant?
As for the Pirates, another sad state of affairs. No longer do I desire to watch a team that I know is simply, and flat out, going to lose. On the plus side, a trip to PNC Park is still one of the best deals in baseball. Tickets are cheap and the food isn't too expensive. Take the Yankees for example. I have been and always will be a huge Yankee fan, but you simply cannot go to a game without burning $100 minimum. Your ticket, food, and a beverage. Who is not going to get a beverage, when the temperatures are soaring above the 90s in the summer? For the Pirates, walk in with two twenty dollar bills and you're going home with change to spare… hmmm, seems like I got back to the almighty buck again from the previous paragraph. Do I see a theme here???
The sad state of television is, that back in 2003, Johnstown was a great market for a decent meteorologist to land a job. In Johnstown, the weatherman was almost as much of a part of your home as a pet or even a lamp. However, around the time of Jay's downfall, this has all changed. Now, it is simply a place for kids to get their first TV straight out of college. Why? Because of the almighty dollar. These people are cheap for stations to hire… usually, making less than $20,000. Why should I trust this new guy who will be gone in six months, when weatherunderground.com will be there for me in an instant?
As for the Pirates, another sad state of affairs. No longer do I desire to watch a team that I know is simply, and flat out, going to lose. On the plus side, a trip to PNC Park is still one of the best deals in baseball. Tickets are cheap and the food isn't too expensive. Take the Yankees for example. I have been and always will be a huge Yankee fan, but you simply cannot go to a game without burning $100 minimum. Your ticket, food, and a beverage. Who is not going to get a beverage, when the temperatures are soaring above the 90s in the summer? For the Pirates, walk in with two twenty dollar bills and you're going home with change to spare… hmmm, seems like I got back to the almighty buck again from the previous paragraph. Do I see a theme here???
Couldn't agree with you more, Joe. PNC Park remains one of the GREAT baseball experiences (and even better if you're rooting for another team). In fact, one can only imagine how that place would rock if the Pirates put up a winning team. (You get a sense of that atmosphere whenever the Pirates have one of their seemingly two dozen "Fireworks Night" which are always sold out.
I wasn't aware by how cheap that news station was/is and you raise a great point and probably one of the major reasons TV news has gradually eroded, the trade off of trust and experience for short-term economic gain.
Couldn't agree with you more, Joe. PNC Park remains one of the GREAT baseball experiences (and even better if you're rooting for another team). In fact, one can only imagine how that place would rock if the Pirates put up a winning team. (You get a sense of that atmosphere whenever the Pirates have one of their seemingly two dozen "Fireworks Night" which are always sold out.
I wasn't aware by how cheap that news station was/is and you raise a great point and probably one of the major reasons TV news has gradually eroded, the trade off of trust and experience for short-term economic gain.