Pittsburgh Segway Game

I came up with a new game today.  I call it Who the fuck are you?  It's modeled after the cartoon character Peter Griffin of Family Guy.

... and Roger Daltry, lead singer of The Who

.... and the Pittsburgh Segway tours

As some of you may know, I run a 3 mile loop pretty much everyday through the North Shore and Point State Park.  Depending on my stamina, sometimes I'll add an extra mile or two.  I start at my coveted parking spot outside the Sunoco Station on Cedar Avenue just off the secluded, mysterious Canal Street exit.  Just for the record, it's correctly pronounced Cane-uhl, not Kuh-nal.

Here's my basic route.  I do all three bridges, back and forth (Rachel Carson, Andy Warhol, Roberto Clemente) and through the PNC ballpark outfield.   If the gates are closed, I zip along the river.   Then it's down toward Stage AE.  Onward for a loop around Heinz Field and sometimes the casino if I'm really in the zone.  Then, over the Fort Duquesne Bridge and around the fountain at Point State Park.  Back over the bridge, snag 2-3 newspapers from the Hyatt and walk the rest of it back to base camp.

It's easily one of the coolest 5K paths in the entire country.

When the weather is pleasant, you often encounter these segway tours.  Helmeted visitors enjoying the sights and sounds... and smells (sometimes there are large piles of puke and puddles of urine after the annual Kenny Chesney concert at Heinz Field).

So here's the gist of the game.  As you jog by the lead segway tour guide, you pull a Peter Griffin.  Explanation: there was this one episode where the entire family was lost in a large crowd of a foreign city and desperately needed directions.   Naturally, Peter approached each person and asked each one individually in rapid fire succession , "Who are you, who are you, who are you, who are you?"  He did not wait for replies.  He just went from one person to the next.  "Who are you, who are you, etc." like a Blaney inspired machine gun laugh.

You simply take this same strategy and apply it to all of the mobile segway beings (helmeted automata --- the correct pluralization, even though you'd think it would be "automatons").  And on the final person, you start singing the classic Who song "Who are You" at the top of your lungs.

Cuz I really wanna know.  Who are you, who, who... who, who.  Ahhh, who the fuck are you, are you.  Who who... who who.  Ah tell me, tell me

The objective of the game is to get the segway automata to sing along.  It's a cool game because there are only two outcomes.  You either win (and they start singing)... or you lose (and they think you're an idiot freak and venture forward in confusion with a residual state of annoyance).  Either someone takes the bait or they all just plod off into the distance, content to live their dreary, unimaginative existences. 

I tried it today and failed.  But I know there will be another opportunity.  Eventually, my time will come.  For the love of God, everything depends on it!

Now let us say a prayer for the unfortunate victims of the 1970 Cincinnati Who concert stampede at Riverfront Coliseum.  Over the years, I've begun to notice a characteristic about human stampedes, particularly at religious festivals like last year's Hajj which had a death toll of over 2,400.  God, Allah, Vishnu or whoever just doesn't seem to give a shit.

Incidentally, my favorite all time Who song is --- drumroll please... Eminence Front.  After all, it's a put on.  People forget.