Souf Oaklin’ fo’ Life

South Oakland is a place where three Mexican restaurants operate within a few blocks of one… South Oakland is a place where three Mexican restaurants operate within a few blocks of one another. All three remain profitable, likely thanks to residents’ relentless desire for inexpensive food that goes well with beer.

South Oakland is a place where there is a couch on every porch and an assortment of torn La-Z Boys and kitchen chairs in every living room.

South Oakland is a place where blocks upon blocks of apartment buildings and houses are suddenly interrupted by a block with two bars and a deli, without anything seeming unusual. To those in South Oakland, it seems like a perfectly reasonable way for the businesses to meet the needs of consumers.

South Oakland is a place that begs to be playfully mocked, but few have gone as far as Alex Dow.

Dow and his friends write and publish Souf Oaklin’ fo’ Life!!! — a publication that spoofs Pitt and the beer-soaked netherworld of bars and grungy student dwellings that borders it.

“It’s a college town, but still, it is very unique,” Dow said of the area. “There is a strange combination of students and typical Pittsburghers that makes it very funny.”

Fictitious events covered in past editions have included: *

John “Cumpie” Brimley, owner of Cumpie’s bar, entering the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries and standing poised to capture “nearly 90 percent of the 4.2 percent of Pitt students who vote.” *

1980s icon Mr. T joining the Oakland A-Team, an actual organization the Oakland Business Improvement District formed to guide students and visitors around town. Mr. T’s smock bore the phrase “I PITTy the fool who don’t stop and ask directions.” *

Pennsylvania Governor Mark Schweiker clarifying that his youth-targeted “Stay, Invent PA” ad campaign is meant for graduates of Carnegie Mellon University, not Pitt. *

Taco Bell selecting the local panhandler “Sombrero Man” as its South Oakland spokesperson. “These ads are aimed at a low-to-no income audience that craves sub-standard Mexican cuisine at a below-poverty price and quality. Sombrero Man epitomizes this criteria,” a Taco Bell marketing director explained, according to the publication. “Besides, he will work for food.”

“I was just a big fan of [national satirical paper] The Onion, and I loved Pittsburgh and South Oakland,” Dow said, explaining the origins of the paper. “I wanted to borrow from The Onion for something on a local level.”

Dow, a Pitt graduates still residing in South Oakland, began writing the paper in the summer of 2000 for his own amusement. Originally, the paper was printed on 8.5-by-11 inch computer printouts and was read only by his friends.

Early headlines included “Pitt Runs Out of Money for Petersen Events Center, Builds Petersen Crack-house Instead” and “White Pittsburghers Love PNC Park.”

Dow left a copy of the paper at his and his friends’ favorite hangout, Denny’s Bar, and soon bar patrons were laughing hysterically at the paper.

This gave an idea to Dow’s friend, Kelly Crawshaw, who graduated from Pitt with a business management degree.

“I actually thought it would make a great business idea because it did go over so well,” Crawshaw said.

In the summer of 2001, Dow and Crawshaw met with two other class of 1999 alumni — Marc Wisnoski, who would become Dow’s co-editor, and Tom Kirby, who would be the paper’s art director — to plan the first tabloid-sized, professionally printed issue of SOFL.

“I remember the first time we talked about doing it,” Kirby said. “We were sitting around Denny’s [Bar], thinking up story ideas.”

“We started meeting as a group to make a business plan,” Crawshaw said.

Although none of the four work for SOFL full-time, the paper must pay for its publishing costs, and it does so the same way Pittsburgh City Paper, Pulp and The Pitt News do: It sells advertising space.

Crawshaw, who is SOFL’s business manager, approached Oakland businesses about placing ads in the first professionally printed version of the paper. She presented them with the paper’s target demographic, its distribution rate and a list of prices for various sized ads.

“We went at it at a very professional level,” she said.

Crawshaw also reminded them that, unlike certain other papers that target Pitt students, SOFL can run advertisements for alcohol.

“All our advertisers have been really supportive,” Dow said. “We could not have done it without them, and they are all locally owned, locally operated businesses, so it is a community thing.”

In September 2001, the first issue of SOFL went to print with the front-page story, “Pitt Screws Oakland,” spoofing the university buying more and more real estate in the community. A Photoshop-produced image of the Cathedral of Learning coated in a giant condom accompanied the article.

Other early headlines included “Pitt to Add White Trash Nationality Room” and “[WQED filmmaker and Pittsburgh historian Rick] Sebak Completes ‘F’ed Up in Oakland’ Documentary.”

The group finds their ideas in a variety of places.

“We’ll walk around and see something, or see something in the news,” Crawshaw said.

Of course, they come up with some of their material while pounding beers at Denny’s.

“We’ll be hanging out, and someone will say, ‘You should do an article on blank or blank,'” Dow said.

In the past two years, word of the paper has spread quickly — even outside Oakland.

“I will walk around with a [SOFL] T-shirt on, all over the city, and people will be like, ‘I love that paper!'” Crawshaw said.

Although the paper has met with a generally favorable response, some have not gotten the joke.

In September 2002, SOFL ran an article entitled “Disgruntled Asian Tattoo Artist Inks His Revenge.” The story told of a tattoo artist who inked “small penis” in Chinese on a Pitt junior’s chest instead of the requested “strength and honor,” and “prostitute” on a woman’s back instead of “princess.”

“The point was that people get these Asian tattoos with symbols, but who are they to know what they mean?” Kirby said.

Soon the article was posted on several tattooing Web sites, and SOFL’s own site got hundreds of thousands of hits. “I guess they didn’t read the whole paper, or if they did, they didn’t realize it was satirical,” Crawshaw said. “It just spread like wildfire that this guy was out here doing this to people.”

Another troublesome story ran in December 2002 under the headline “Pittsburgh Passion Quarterback Not Getting Laid,” referring to the city’s National Women’s Football Association team.

The joke was that the star status of NFL quarterbacks does not transfer to the NWFA, but the NWFA wasn’t laughing. They complained to Angelfire, the Web service that was then hosting SOFL’s Internet site, and the site was closed. The paper is now at www.soufoaklin.com.

“It sucked, because we actually wanted to promote the [NWFA], but they took it all wrong,” Kirby said.

Also, one particularly snippy publication became jealous of how close the paper’s spoofs came to actual news.

“We scooped The Pitt News one time,” Wisnoski said.

Last summer, SOFL lampooned Pitt’s spending habits with the story “Pitt Builds $74 Million Something or Other.” Two days later, Pitt announced the construction of a third Biomedical Tower.

“[The Pitt News] e-mailed us and said, ‘By the way guys, it was $160 million, not $74 [million],'” Wisnoski said. “Sorry we scooped you with satire.”

Despite being sometimes misunderstood, the Pitt alumni plan to continue to lampoon South Oakland.

Recently, they unveiled the April 2004 issue, which included such headlines as “Local Prostitutes Form Labor Union” and “Asian Tattoo Artist Inks Revenge Behind Bars,” reporting that the now-famous tattoo artist has inked “I Swallow” and “Salad Tosser” on fellow inmates. The issue is available at sponsoring businesses such as Denny’s Bar and Bootleggers and in the lobby of Hillman Library.

If Pitt students or other Oakland residents feel like they have something to add to the paper, they may submit an article at submissions@soufoaklin.com, although the paper prints very few outside submissions.

“We’ve only gotten two or three usable submissions,” Wisnoski said. “Most of the time it’s something like, ‘[Pitt Chancellor Mark] Nordenberg Eats His Own Poop.'”

Those submitting work may have to be bilingual, though.

“The next issue of Souf Oaklin’ fo’ Life is going to be in Spanish, because there are so many Mexican restaurants here,” Wisnoski said, referring to the three Mexican eateries now operating on Forbes Avenue.

Wisnoski added that the summer edition will be published under the title “Oaklin’ Del Sur Por Viva!!!”