Portland, Oregon

Portland – the very name makes my bot­tom coo with delight.  I can rhap­sodize for hours about our city’s effi­cient and eco-friendly mass tran­sit sys­tem; its raw quilt of indie rock splen­dor; the hours of fun one can have “peo­ple watch­ing.” Plus, Portland has a thriv­ing culi­nary scene. Let’s start there.

Cuisine

Gustatory dreams await the dis­crim­i­nat­ing eater in Portland. Specifically, I rec­om­mend Ethereal Meats, the Rebirthing Bistro, Wistful Scones and the Vegan Hose. Plus, Portland (or “PDX” for short) has some­thing really dynamic to offer — “food carts.” “Food carts,” unique to PDX, are mobile culi­nary units that serve up tasty curb­side dishes. Enjoy some farm-fresh fro-yo en route to the eco­tage summit.

For those who crave nubil­ity with their nour­ish­ment, I rec­om­mend Portland’s vegan strip club, Casa Diablo. This “greasy poon” (pun intended) has received rave reviews from fem­i­nist blog­gers. Experience it for your­self — gnaw on some tofu riblets while watch­ing a great jigglefest.

The bot­tom line? Portland is filled — from rec­tum to pie-hole — with hip anar­chist bistros and les­bian taco bars. Whet your polit­i­cal palate and Other Peoples’ Privates at Love Chow, where the ama­tory menu explodes with polit­i­cal grist, high-energy bis­cuits and reac­tionary stew. Then head over to Leafy Affirmations to try the Resistance Red Bell Peppers and Fight-the-Power Farmer’s Cheese.

Diver­sity and Tolerance

Portland is the nation’s whitest city. But don’t shy away because of this, folks. A stroll down PDX’s newly chris­tened César E. Chávez Boulevard is like a walk through a bustling Mexican mer­cado. The mul­ti­cul­tural “CCB” (as locals affec­tion­ately call it) is dot­ted with such shops and ven­dors as Trader Joe’s, Walgreens, and Jiffy Lube. And one can browse for hours in Fred Meyer’s vast pro­duce sec­tion and Mexican food aisle.

Fashion

Our city’s deli­cious galaxy of grub and vit­tles may add some excess blub­ber to your fig­ure. But don’t worry, Fat Fancy has got your rotund back­side cov­ered. This down­town bou­tique caters to Portland’s hefty hip­sters; its Web site exclaims “Riots, not diets!” Shops like Fat Fancy play an impor­tant role in Portland’s social ecol­ogy by pre­vent­ing ema­ci­ated waifs from monop­o­liz­ing the body-type demographic.

Insurance Scene

Portlanders love Obamacare, but we love local insur­ance even more.  Driving through town, you’ll notice the stun­ning vis­age of State Farm agent Mariko Locke on var­i­ous bill­boards.  And a cou­ple of years ago, NFL fans were treated to fre­quent State Farm com­mer­cials star­ring comely local agent Diane Nichols.

Media and Publishing

Our local paper of record, the Oregonian, has Pulitzer Prizes bub­bling from all ori­fices. This delight­ful rag is filled with big-time tal­ent, includ­ing hard-edged yet altru­is­tic colum­nist Steve Duin and hard-edged yet altru­is­tic colum­nist John Canzano.  The O’s gang of gritty new­shounds work hard and play hard, even as the news­pa­per indus­try crum­bles. Witness this light-hearted Facebook group, which hon­ors edit­ing vir­tu­oso Quinton Smith. The immensely tal­ented and hard-nosed Smith exited the paper in 2008 under gru­el­ing cir­cum­stances. Chin up, Q!

The Oregonian’s chief com­peti­tor, the occa­sion­ally pub­lished Portland Tribune, is another pow­der keg of jour­nal­is­tic integrity.  It is run by a quirky indus­tri­al­ist with a heart of gold.

Hip PDX read­ers favor the Willamette Week and the Portland Mercury, two war­ring alt-weekly pub­li­ca­tions.  (“Alt-weeklies” are tabloid-style news­pa­pers filled with humor­ous prose, live music list­ings and won­der­fully turgid polit­i­cal views.)

Insider’s Tip: Portland was once home to Feral House Publishing, the brain­child of defi­antly trans­gres­sive thes­pian Adam Parfrey. Feral House’s cat­a­logue of books is full of bru­tal truths, unmuf­fled screams and dan­ger­ous infor­ma­tion! Unyielding…unrelenting…uncompromising.

Music

The Portland music scene is inter­na­tion­ally renowned.  Legendary grunge music com­poser Kurt Cobain met his even­tual wife Courtney Love here. Their mar­riage became one of the most talked-about in recent mem­ory, as rumors per­sist that Cobain’s 1994 sui­cide was actu­ally a hit job com­mis­sioned by Love.

Personally, I don’t buy this hog­wash. I’ve met Eldon Hoke, the alleged assassin-for-hire, and though some­what intim­i­dat­ing in his executioner’s hood and leather briefs, he struck me as cor­dial. Too cor­dial to slay the beloved face of Generation X. Perhaps we’ll never know the truth, though, as Hoke’s life came to an abrupt end in Riverside, California, where he died in a train-related mis­ad­ven­ture in 1997.

Insider’s Tip: Courtney Love’s new album, Skinny Little Bitch, is now avail­able in stores. Also: check out the Twit­ter feed of occa­sional PDX res­i­dent Anthony Keidis, a.k.a “Tony Flow.” Sample Tweet:

“If my face was burned off by acid, would you still see me as a sex symbol?”

Quality of Life

Portland appeals to all kinds of peo­ple — 20 some­things, 30 some­things and indie rock­ers. Most excel­lently, Portland is not weighed down by the ques­tion­able aes­thet­ics of blue col­lar sub­ur­bia and/or strip malls. As Willamette Week scribe Ethan Smith alludes to in this won­der­ful piece of gonzo jour­nal­ism, Portland pushes its “white trash” to the mar­gins of city life, where they often die:

Every sum­mer, some drunken red­neck drowns in the Sandy River, and local hand-wringers blame it on a lack of life­guards. The poor bas­tards who drown — rest their sloppy, Larry the Cable Guy-loving souls — don’t need life­guards. They need high-school diplo­mas, shirts with sleeves, and the sense not to pound a case of Natural Ice and toss them­selves off 30-foot cliffs into unscouted depths.

LOL! Too funny, Ethan! But true! ZING! You’re a com­edy por­cu­pine with those sharp quills!

Local writer Zach Dundas also gives props to our city’s liv­abil­ity.  He appre­ci­ates that PDX val­ues the con­trivances of pan­sex­ual dilet­tantes and kitschy eater­ies above park­ing spots and working-class moms. Chirps Dundas:

Portland’s hin­ter­lands do, indeed, include Chili’s and Burger Kings, soccer-mom culs-de-sac and McMansions. At very def­i­nite places, how­ever, that all ends.

Dundas is right — work­ing fam­i­lies are pushed to the edge of PDX to make room for the alpha cul­ture of alt-weekly writ­ers and Sleater-Kinney fans. Still, PDX fam­i­lies have plenty of rea­sons to enjoy our urbane, traffic-soaked hamlet.

My fam­ily of six lives in a two-bedroom apart­ment that’s only 3 inches from the near­est light-rail sta­tion. Our morn­ing com­mute is a sim­ple mat­ter of tying the kids to my $3,000 moun­tain bike, ped­al­ing 10.8 miles, show­er­ing at 24-Hour Fitness, get­ting dressed again, tak­ing a 15-minute Max train ride to Hillsboro and catch­ing my bus after a 45-minute wait.

This sounds tough, I know, but that’s how we roll in PDX. A few weeks ago, I strapped a 275-pound bag of organic flour to my bike — along with the kid­dos — and received a stand­ing ova­tion from mar­ket shop­pers as I ped­aled away. It was a great feel­ing. I was sustainable…I was unstoppable.

Sex, Lies and Gentrification

Our burg has seen its share of scan­dals, such as the Breedlovian odyssey of our glad-handing mayor Sam Adams. But folks, par­don me while I deliver some straight talk. I think I speak for 95% of Portland when I say “hats off to Mayor Adams.” Amid the salac­ity of scan­dal, a man who bikes to work and favors paper over plas­tic con­quered the din of homo­pho­bia and remained in power. True, our city did not lend the same com­pas­sion to an African American man in sim­i­larly trou­bled times, but PDX won’t make that mis­take again. That’s because we Portlanders, to our immense credit, are self-loathing gen­tri­fiers who feel remorse when­ever we dis­place the blight of eth­nic neigh­bor­hoods with micro­brew­eries and and yoga parlors.

Sex-Positive Vibes

Portland is known for its fierce queer advo­cacy. Local jour­nal­ist J.L. Stockman has writ­ten exten­sively about Portland’s bur­geon­ing bear scene. Read as Stockman reflects on an epiphany he and col­league Dave had while view­ing some male erot­ica one afternoon:

Alas — Dave and I had found our cause. We would be the Willamette Valley Protectors of the Bears. These fat hairy homos could count on us if the shit ever went down!

As a whole, Portland’s dat­ing scene is second-to-none.  Plus, it’s par­tic­u­larly friendly to lib­eral sin­gles. Local lifestyle colum­nist Officer Partridge, writ­ing in the sex-positive mag­a­zine Exotic, expounds hap­pily on the suc­cess he’s had meet­ing progressive-minded Portland women:

I love the lib­eral girls. I love their organic lit­tle bod­ies. They come in dozens of fla­vors, like ice cream. Anarchists in sewn-together stretch jeans and patches; Plain Jane U of O soci­ol­ogy majors; drug-addled rain­bow bun­nies; and all man­ner of unshaven “activists” in between. But just below the sur­face of so many grass-tokin’ neo-hippie fem­i­nists, a sub­mis­sive wonder-slut is fes­ter­ing like a rag­ing sub­cu­ta­neous pimple.

Smart Growth

You may notice that our streets are clogged arter­ies and the air con­tains some foul pol­lu­tants. Moreover, our neigh­bor­hoods are high-density dis­com­fort zones. No wor­ries  – this is by design. In 50 or 60 years, it will all make sense.

Portland’s omnibenev­o­lent city plan­ners under­stand that con­ges­tion and jam-packed, infre­quent buses prompt peo­ple to use more prag­matic com­mut­ing meth­ods. Therefore, our city plan­ners encour­age human-powered trans­porta­tion e.g. wind surf­ing, rick­shaw­ing, hand­cy­cling, scooter­ing, power­bock­ing, and caster board­ing. A nice bonus is that Portland’s short city blocks and “gotcha!” cross­walks are a walker’s par­adise. Only a hand­ful of pedes­tri­ans and sui­ci­dal bicy­clists die each week.Speaking of cyclists, if you like them, all you need to do is throw a rock and you’ll hit one! (Just hav­ing a lit­tle fun with the rock ref­er­ence; PDX is geo­log­i­cally unique and has an honest-to-goodness volcano right within its city lim­its.) Cyclists occupy the cen­ter of Portland’s rich cul­tural tapes­try. With their spindly appendages and canary-yellow adven­ture suits, they are a site to behold. Sometimes they even ride nude. And while it’s true that cyclists rule Portland with a green fist, the city has a promis­ing sys­tem of checks and bal­ances in development.

Worship

There are numer­ous faith-based orga­ni­za­tions and out­reach pro­grams in the com­mu­nity. The Partridge Family Temple is just one. Sadly, the city’s 24-Hour Church of Elvis, a post­mod­ern trib­ute to pop cul­ture debris, is now closed. I vis­ited the Church once, and speak­ing can­didly, I found it unpleas­ant. When I rang the door­bell, a deranged, Muppet-faced crea­ture accosted me and demanded that I pur­chase some soiled T-shirts. Eventually, I got to tour the museum’s main wing, though, where I observed worth­less trin­kets and the stench of fail­ure. In ret­ro­spect, the Church’s high-art con­cepts were tran­scen­dent.  Keep Portland Weird, bro!

Summation

PDX has it all — farm-to-table foodgasms; prag­matic lib­er­al­ism and sar­donic scen­esters. Furthermore, PDX has a cul­ture that nur­tures and cod­dles non-entities to the height of micro-celebrity. Rock the fuck on, dude.

!!!!!EXCELSIOR!!!!!

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