Tick-a!

This song sounds to me like:

The parking lots around Heinz Field and the Roberto Clemente Bridge before a Pirates game. Carson Street and the Southside on a Friday Night--you're just trying to make it downtown through the crowds. The incline slowly crawling up Mt. Washington to slide back down. And there are teenagers at the bottom talking to the police, drunk. Or the view from the top of the Mount--a thousand lights tossed from on high like a bag of change in a fountain. The rivers meet and twist away to the west and then dissapear without any lights. Or you go through the Liberty Tunnel and its very warm--with a wind that pushes your hand back like a catapult to be launched. Or you get on the Port Authority train and take it as far south as you can go and you stop to buy some used books and get a drink in the mall food court. Then you go back downtown, passing houses with rooms over the garage that get rented to college students or where housewives and teachers write novels during the evening and they have to tell their kids not to play basketball in the driveway because they're working.

Then the song gets to the end and reminds you: "Don't get mad" tick-a "Dont get mean" as if all of this wasn't reminder enough. Sometimes, though, you have to say things, not just know them. Girls like Nelly Furtado are always reminding us of this.

I also think of the baseball field on the Duquesne Heights end of the mountain where a deer ran across the infield when I was camping out on the outfield. Where you can play homerun derby or watch the little leaguers run to third base instead of first. And...