Short and Stupid: Part of an Ongoing Series
Well, here we are. I warned you this would happen. It’s time for the first in what I imagine will be a series of short and stupid blog posts. This is where the rubber meets the road on the quota thing.
I spent the whole morning worrying about interviewing somebody. I mean, pacing around the apartment, checking my questions list over and over again, dreading the moment that it came. And then I drove up to NoPo, and the interview was both easy and relatively brief. Hours and hours of worry for 30 minutes of tape, probably 2 minutes of which will end up in the story. Ah, well. That’s the way it goes.
I’m having difficulty with this story, conceptualizing it, I think because my contrarian nature keeps getting in the way. Most people accept it as an absolute good that Portland didn’t put in any more freeways than it did back in the 50s and 60s. We even ripped one out, which is all but unheard of. And I guess I agree with that — my own apartment wouldn’t be here if the Mt Hood Freeway had actually been laid up SE Division Street. But then I’d just live somewhere else and I wouldn’t know the difference. Wouldn’t I?
I dunno. I think maybe the good thing about denial of the freeways is less about the freeways qua the freeways and more about a certain attitude in Portland that persists and makes it the place it is. Yeah, it’s ripe for parody. And, to quote my brother Andy, there isn’t a big city in America that’s nearly so up its own butt as Portland is. But I love it.
Here’s an example of that whole up-its-own-butt thing: when it came time to ask the woman who I was interviewing if she was from Portland, I had to preface it this way: “I realize this has gotten to be a loaded question these days, but are you from around here originally?” I mean seriously. This is the 21st century. Nobody lives where they grew up. Why should we, the few, the native Portlanders,* be the only ones to pretend otherwise?
*In truth, I am not a native-born Portlander. I was born in Corvallis, about 90 miles south. We moved to Portland when I was 4. My dad told me once that he and my mom always intended to go back to Corvallis one day. Why we didn’t is a long, involved, and kind of interesting story, which is why I’m not going to tell it right now, in this short and stupid blog post.
And here’s another. Whenever I meet someone new in this town, I find myself — almost against my own will — going out of my way to somehow let everyone know that I grew up here, unlike all the, ahem, Californians who are around everywhere. When I met my friend’s new girlfriend before the MLS All Star game last summer, I wedged in a totally pointless reference to having gone to Portland Beavers games as a kid, just so that she would know that I was from Portland and the fact that I was just moving there was about having gone exploring, rather than come invading. And, oh, my God. Who fucking cares? I actually think that Portland is a much better place for all the newbies around. The Portland of my youth was a sleepy backwater without much going on other than the scenery. Now it’s full of restaurants and clubs and breweries. There’s a radio scene, a lit scene. (I don’t really participate in the lit scene. I probably should.)
Leave us not forget that Portland inspired the Dead Kennedys classic “Night of the Living Rednecks”. That was then. Now, when famous people are mean about Portland, it’s done with love.
Anyway, speaking of being up our own butts, I’ve now been writing aimlessly about my hometown for several paragraphs for basically no reason. It’s so hot you guys. And I don’t think that’s liable to change.
Anyway. I’m done for the day. Maybe I’ll have something interesting tomorrow. I’ll catch ya on the flip-flop.