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Rant #278: We Hear and Obey, Almighty Casino Operators

I had just finished polishing my pinkie rings and ironing my Qiana polyester shirts when a headline in the Post-Gazette caught my eye. “Harrah’s expects residents to ante up,” it said on the March 8 front page. This demanded some sober thought, so I put on my rhinestone-studded glasses and gave this 11^th commandment its due consideration.

The story’s first paragraph said, “Harrah’s is expecting you to lose $400 at its slot machines during the casino’s first year.”

That’s a lot to winch out from my part-time job at Wendy’s. But orders are orders, and who better than a gaming outfit to deliver this moral imperative?

It is a modest request -- damn reasonable, if you ask me. Chump change compared to the houses and cars that get repo-ed around the clock without help from those fine folks in the gaming biz. I am a little confused, though: Should I lose it all at once, or would they prefer I lost it at an even pace of $8.50 per week?

The article goes on to say that Harrah’s estimates “three-fourths of its $531.4 million in annual slots revenue will come from residents of Allegheny County.” The good news is that we won’t catch avian flu from outsiders; the bad news is that there isn’t much dough in circulation around here as it is. Are they sure every adult still breathing can lose their fair share?

All right, I am being facetious. Some residents won’t gamble at all, while others will bet the farm. It will all balance out -- like a psychotic ballerina -- and only a fool would suggest that this city needs a better plan for economic recovery.

According to the article, the gaming companies get to write and submit their own community-impact reports, which makes this whole thing remind me of a Montessori school -- downright humanistic in its tolerance for error. And it lets the gaming companies use their imaginations, rather then distressing the public with unpleasant facts. Isle of Capri, another casino developer, got some help with its community-impact report. “Its consultant, The Innovation Group, estimated that 240 to 360 new crime cases could occur each year, mostly involving property offenses like vandalism and stealing,” the P-G reported. That is innovative, so much so that everyone can take side bets on the real impact of the casinos. At least they aren’t predicting a huge increase in the local murder rate, because that would not be very life-affirming, and might be harmful to the growth needs of sensitive entrepreneurs.

A collateral benefit of casinos is that they will boost consumer spending. Imagine how many people will buy a DVD of the movie Casino to prepare for their nights at the slots. There is still time left before the casinos open, and you will want to get your silk suits, Rolex watch and Porsche so you can make a good impression on Wayne Newton, should he happen to breeze in. He probably won’t, but don’t forget that his favorite cologne is Paco Rabane, so buy yourself a quart while you still have good credit.

Even if you have bad credit, and the bank cut your VISA card into guitar picks, you will still be able to drop quarters into the one-armed bandits. Look forward to a beautiful friendship with your debt-relief specialist, who will be even happier than I am about a revitalization plan that worked so well in other bankrupt cities.

Stop Snooping In My Finances, Bank Telemarketers

Writer: BRUCE REISNER, NORTH SIDE

I am not naming the name of the banking institution that pissed me off, because I still have an account with them, and don’t know what these creeps are capable of doing. For certain they are allowed to call on the phone, immune to punishment for cruel telemarketing.

If I didn’t have an account with them, they would not be allowed to call me -- but because I do have an account, a stupidly titled “business relationship” -- they are allowed to make harassing phone calls on Sunday and the rest of the dreary week.

Bad as it is to be called on the phone by anything that doesn’t pay me directly or result in gratification, it is worse to be harassed in the way this bank (hint: it’s the namesake of sports field) tried to pressure me into purchasing an investment. I’ve gotten five or six of these calls so far, all similar, but each time I get to meet a new member of their high-pressure telemarketing squad.

I will give them all an A for style. All of them start off like they’re offering a free trip to Atlantic City before they grease up for the dive into my personal finances. After a few dozen cheerful banalities brought to mind in professional telephone deportment, it’s time to close a deal: “Do you do most of your purchasing in cash, or do you use credit cards?”

I am an egalitarian: I dislike equally giving this information to criminals, the FBI, and underpaid bank employees, and I have a comparable compassion for bums and telemarketers alike. But bums rarely work as hard to get at your money as does this bank. “We have on record here that you use a MAC machine …”

I kid you not: They all told me, unsolicited, that I use MAC machines, even mentioning the locations I use. One of the gang told me how much money I was withdrawing from MAC machines, so he knows how much I’m likely to be carrying. I’m glad he knows that. Big Brother is behind the telescreen. It was starting to sound like an intimidation racket.

My talks with the bank’s people, who are all authorized to call me (we have an ongoing business relationship), were fast moving into the red zone of preference for privacy. If I wanted people tracking my spending and whereabouts, I could try to get back together with my wife. If I thought an investment was a good idea, I might consider it. But not over the phone with an entry-level sales jerk. And I don’t like total strangers reciting to me the prose of my banking activity when I am at home, surfing the Net for free porn.

From the late 1990s to now, a lot has gone in the drink. The dot-com economy is gurgling under the Allegheny River. By George, the return in interest on a passbook savings account is so low you can hide what you get under the head of a pin. So I am pleased that something is in ascendancy, namely the intrusiveness of a certain lending institution. Thanks for everything, including your sponsorship of a local baseball field. It all comes at the expense and discomfiture of others.

The West End Circle Makes a Mockery of All Human Aspiration

Writer: BRUCE REISNER, NORTH SIDE

To win the Miss America pageant, a woman must outperform the others. And not just in beauty. She must have talent, moral character, and even a philosophy of life that somehow proves she’s a better person than Aileen Wuornos. These things are important to a culture that coddles equally our freedom, prosperity and our right to bombard foreign countries.

But that is people. This is a pageant for a big, ugly and dangerous inanimate object.

If a street could stand up on stage and walk down a narrow runway, roses in its arms, then the West End Circle would be like a Miss America pageant for the Worst Civil Engineering Project in the U.S. Perhaps the world. It is an atrocity in all areas of this grotesque, other-side-of-the-mirror beauty contest called “getting from the North Side to Route 51” (a road which deserves a rant of its own, but like a mother with Munchhausen’s-by-proxy, I can’t be everywhere at once.)

To start with the important beefs, it is unsafe and confusing. It is impossible to be certain that you are in the correct lane, owing to signage with an arcane personal agenda to cause a car accident. There are side shows that could distract the most collected motorist -- such as the dozens of police monitoring the confusion in cars parked all around, red lights spinning like they are calling Bingo games for traffic perps.

Perhaps they could improve the West End Circle by handing out free stuffed animals to the over-stressed drivers. Better, they could sponsor a giveaway of some of the safety equipment that litters the staggered, winding lanes.

People should try to be more considerate, and park their earthmovers and back hoes where they won’t obstruct the view of billboards and discarded 40-ounce bottles.

For some reason, the most obnoxious people in the area ride the West End Circle as if it were a carousel committed to anger and vengeance. The last time I was harassed by a driver, it was a tattooed man in a rusting delivery truck. I probably cost him precious seconds while on his race to deliver a plumbing fixture. I am not a sociopath: I was truly remorseful, and would have gladly apologized for being in front of his warty, disintegrating truck. But he was fixed upon convincing me that I am an a-hole. As his vehicle overtook mine, he hurled invectives, centrifugal force winging his belly backward as, side by side, our dirty vehicles strained from bad inertia.

He deliberately kept pace with my car so that he could finish his rant about my driving habits.

Perhaps the ugly concrete, cables, safety equipment and barriers could be made more attractive. Sometimes a public art project is erected in the middle of municipal eyesores. I propose a giant sculpture, titled “The West End Circle Jerk.” It also might help to spray Chanel No. 5 on the West End Circle from a helicopter.

The back hoes, the crack hos, the wackos … sometimes I miss my exit, and go around the circle again. It can happen more than once, round and round. I’m dizzy, spinning, getting onto Route 51. Talking into my cell phone, eating a 12-inch hoagie and typing this responsible, informative rant on my laptop with index finger while operating the standard transmission on my 1979 Ford Montego. I feel better now that my feelings have been aired, and I am able to see that, as bad as it is, the West End Circle is scantly worse than human imperfection.