103- UTBAPH

99% Invisible

SiriusXM Podcasts and Roman Mars

Design, Arts

4.8 • 27.5K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2014

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It started with some Pittsburgh humor. Pittsburgh-based comedian Tom Muisal does a bit about a GPS unit that can give directions in “Pittsburghese.” Because in Pittsburgh, no one calls it “Interstate 376,” it’s “The Parkway.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is 99% invisible. I am Roman Mars.
0:05.6	Let's start with some Pittsburgh humor. This is comedian Tom Usual on WDVE in Pittsburgh,
0:11.4	Pennsylvania. It's my dad's birthday a few weeks ago and I thought you know what, I'm going to
0:14.8	get something really nice for my dad, something he's really going to like. So I got him this GPS
0:18.8	system, you know, are those nice ones with the sexy voice that talks to you while you're driving.
0:23.1	Right. I'm like he's going to love this thing. Tom's dad of lifelong Pittsburgher couldn't make
0:27.6	heads nor tails of the GPS's directions because I am told no one in Pittsburgh actually calls anything
0:34.4	by its official name. It's not interstate 376. It's the parkway. It's not the Liberty tunnel. It's
0:41.6	the tubes. So the joke goes looking to help his dad out. Tom downloaded a special plug-in that makes
0:47.1	the GPS device give directions like a Pittsburgher. Get on a parkway going towards Tom.
0:53.6	Get off like you're going to Canny Woods where you're going up a hill under a railroad track and
1:01.6	you're making a left and a right the same time. Go pass that crazy church up there on stilts.
1:10.0	Make a right and if you go pass where Swissville high school used to be you went too far.
1:15.2	Where used to be? Yeah. You have to know where stuff used to be. Otherwise you're in trouble.
1:20.6	Sometimes the stories of what used to be can have more meaning than what's actually here now.
1:25.1	The philosopher Guy de Boer had a word for using your emotions and memories as a way of way
1:30.1	finding. He called it psychogiography. That's the philosopher Sam Greenspan. And psychogiography is
1:35.6	particularly useful in Pittsburgh. We passed Bob's diner. Bob's diner that we just passed used to be
1:43.7	a car dealership and I know that because it was a car dealership when I first moved to this area
1:48.5	and then the family dollar across the street there used to be a grocery store and I don't know
1:54.8	that one firsthand. That's just all through here say. This is Pittsburgh resident Mike Nielsen.
2:00.6	This place is just right with things that used to be things. It's like it's kind of like history.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from SiriusXM Podcasts and Roman Mars, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of SiriusXM Podcasts and Roman Mars and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.