When young, ambitious and perennially penniless, we tend to accept all sorts of oddball offers to make a buck. Just last weekend, Blair Powell, a frequent CRM contributor and longtime riding buddy, sent me a You Tube clip of an old Iron City Beer commercial I appeared in some 25 years back. I’d forgotten all about the advertising spot, even though at Pittsburgh Pirates games I’m a frequent imbiber of Old Red Eye as we affectionately call it. Back then, when my writing career was still in its early stages, I’d take on all sorts of odd jobs, some of which were truly deserving of the term. How odd, you ask? Well, I once served as bouncer at a wedding staged between two warring Italian-American families afraid that a post-nuptial punch-up might occur (it didn’t, but I’ve never been propositioned by so many middle-aged women) and I once even “worked” as an extra for an ABC crime drama where I was cast as not one but three different outlaw bikers in one episode. Talk about your low budgets!
Still, the silly musical commercial, filmed at long-gone biker bar the 31St Street Pub – is a fun look back at the past. Kinda makes me want to pump an Iron as the ad says…