Barfly June 2005

I’ve spent almost twenty of my twenty-five years in Portland, and as much as I make noise about blowing this pop stand and moving to points east or south, it would take a hell of an offer to get me out of the Rose City. A few of my favorite things about this rainy, junkie-tastic, leech filled town:

Portland is an easy place to get started. Let me offer an example: once upon a time there was a sixteen year old girl whose school paper wouldn’t let her write about music. So she waltzed in to the offices of a well-known paper called The Rocket, and within a few weeks she was published. In almost any other city, she would have been escorted out the door by a security guard. People here will give you a chance to prove yourself.

Portland is cheap. Seriously, you can quit your bitching about rents right now, or at least until you’ve lived in say, Boston. Or Washington, DC. Or Los Angeles. I’ve lived all three places and let me tell you, you can live like a king in Portland for what you’d pay for a roach infested closet in any other city. While actually buying a house is a whole other matter, renting in this town is easy as pie. If you’re living in Portland and couch surfing, you might want to re-examine your ability to function as an adult.

There ain’t no shame in Portland. Doing some of the aforementioned couch surfing? No problem, there are plenty of sofas waiting for you! Mooching off your boyfriend or girlfriend? You’re just spending time “creating art” and if they wise up and dump you, why, there are plenty of other pretty young things with low self esteem out there. Haven’t picked up a book or newspaper in years? Reading is for losers; wearing a great outfit to the Doug Fir is what makes you a good human being. People in Portland will gleefully admit to being undereducated moochers, and no one makes them feel the least bit bad about it. Compare this to the east coast, where self-loathing is a full time job (well, after working ninety hours a week in order to afford the aforementioned roach infested closet).

Portland makes politics fun. Most protests consist of a bunch of smelly hippies walking around chanting. BOR-RING. In Portland, we do anarchy right. Radical cheerleaders, black blockers, crazy performance troupes; a protest in “Little Beirut” is more a party then a demonstration. What are we protesting? Trees? Mumia? Who cares, Tre Arrow is here, and ladies, I hear he’s single.

Portland is home. I’ll complain about this city until I’m blue in the face, but the truth is, if any non-native says one bad word, I’ll put up my dukes. I’m old school Portland, and I’m proud of it. I remember when the Brewery Blocks was an actual brewery. I used to see Elliott Smith at Umbra Penumbra. I saw one of the first Dandy Warhols shows at Ozone Records. I used to go to the X-Ray Café.

The weather may suck and the trust fund hippies are annoying, but the coffee is good, the beer is better, and the people are the best.