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Archive for the ‘Portland’ Category

Night of the Living Naked Bicyclists

In Athletics, Nudity, Portland on June 22, 2010 at 11:08 pm

Yes, that’s me. In that picture I am wearing the following items:

-Socks
-Shoes
-A bicycle helmet
-A messenger bag
-Paint
…And that’s it. Saturday was the World Naked Bike Ride here in Portland, and I was not going to miss it. Last year, I learned of the event too late and wasn’t able to participate because I was playing Dungeons and Dragons. Yes, really. While thousands of other Portlanders were getting naked in the streets last year, I was playing D&D. (Though, it was a really fun D&D session…)
The Oregon constitution goes a bit further than the federal one with regards to protected speech. Because the World Naked Bike Ride is technically political speech (we were ostensibly there protesting oil dependence), the ensuing bike-mounted parade of butts, boobs, and saddle-mounted wangs were 100% legal. The police were out in force… corking traffic for us. Several of the cops waved, and one particularly enthusiastic officer of the law was throwing metal horns to the various naked cyclists.
This was the second time in my life that I’ve been naked on a bike, and just like when I got naked for a flaming lips video, it was pretty much entirely nonsexual. I’m not about to turn into some kind of ideological nudist, but damn it was fun. Lots of fun. Overturning social mores almost always is.
A steady crowd of onlookers had massed on the street, often with their arms out, high-fiving the participants. The naked participants, in turn, often shouted things such as “Take off your pants!” to the crowd. Amazingly, some of them did. There were more than a few naked onlookers, most notably a very well-muscled gentleman sitting naked astride a motorcycle and giving everyone a thumbs up. If there ever was a potential cover for a gay metal album, he was it.
One of the bums I recognized from Old Town also decided to get naked, and there, on the side of the road, he was wearing nothing but dirt whilst bouncing up and down excitedly. I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing filthy bouncing hobo wang, but there it was. Also in Old Town a rather obnoxious frat-boyish sort of guy screamed “Where the titties at?” I thought this was sort of a curious thing to say given that titties were everywhere.
Like I said, overturning social mores is nearly always fun. The feeling of everyone getting together and saying “Hey, guys! Let’s temporarily operate using alternative social constructions!” is precisely the kind of thing that can make lots of people say “Woo!” It’s a refreshing reminder that things are mutable.
It was highly neat. If I’m in Portland next year, I’m definitely getting naked again.

Thirty-Eight, Cesar Chavez, Forty

In Portland, Rants on April 15, 2010 at 3:58 pm

I like numbered streets. They are a force of good in the world. If, for example, you are looking for 32nd Ave, you would do well to look between 31st and 33rd. Easy, intuitive, and logical. Numbered streets are wonderful. Only slightly less awesome are streets that are in alphabetical order.

Portland, though, has decided that the beautiful efficiency of numbers is apparently a bad idea, and has started chipping away at this by renaming 39th Ave Cesar Chavez Blvd. Now, I have nothing against Chavez- but I mourn heavily the loss of number 39, an innocent number that really should be nestled in their with its little sister, 38, and its big brother, 40. Instead, the number 39 is now a restless orphan, wandering the streets alone and trying to sell matches, all the while slowly dying of consumption.

I want to reiterate this again- I have no problem with Cesar Chavez Blvd. as a name. However, I would be opposed to replacing any number with anything. If 15th were going to be replaced with Cuddly Bunny St., I would oppose that. If 82nd was going to be renamed Delicious Pie Ave., I would oppose that. If 33rd was going to be rechristened Screaming Orgasm Drive, I would oppose that, too.

Maybe I’d be okay with having 42nd renamed Douglas Adams Ave. Maybe.

If we wanted to commemorate Cesar Chavez, then we should have used a street with a boring, prosaic, name. I think Grand would have been an ideal candidate. It’s a main arterial, not a numbered street, and has an entirely generic name that could suffer a bit of erasing. Instead, we got rid of a perfectly lovely number. As awesome a guy as Cesar Chavez was, he can never replace 39. No one can.

Portland, We Need to Talk About "Chinatown"…

In Portland, Rants, San Francisco on April 15, 2010 at 9:11 am

Dearest Portland,

Over the past year plus that I’ve lived here, I have found new reasons to love you. New areas of weirdness and wonder, new quirks and oddities to marvel at. You, Portland, are a tremendous place, and I routinely feel a swell of irrational pride at you being my native city. However, there is something that we need to talk about. Something that you could be doing better. No, it’s not the lack of bike lanes on Sandy Blvd., though that is annoying. Nor is it the eyesore that is SE Powell. I have every confidence you’ll clean those up eventually. No, what we need to talk about, Portland, is the couple of blocks downtown that you have decided to dub “Chinatown.”

Chinatown sucks, Portland. It’s more than a little embarrassing. I was recently in San Francisco, and took a stroll through that city’s Chinatown. I’d been there before, but it’s a fun neighborhood and I was with people who’d never been. I snapped a few photos. Here’s an example:

That’s not any particular landmark or a significant intersection or anything. That’s just a bit on the street. Nothing too unusual. Here’s another one:

Again, that’s not a famous landmark or anything. I was just walking down the street, snapping away like an obnoxious tourist, and took a picture of that building. Pretty commonplace.

For contrast, here’s the House of Louie, one of Portland Chinatown’s most “Chinese” buildings. It’s kind of decrepit and sort of a sad sight:

And here’s Royal Family Ginseng, right next door, abandoned. Someone papered up the windows, but now those brown sheets are peeling away, the markings of abandonment themselves disintegrating:

And that’s it, really. There are a few other “Chinese” type buildings, but that’s pretty much it in terms of what Portland has. Why the disjunction? Why does San Francisco have a Chinatown where storefronts and apartments are culturally distinctive and Portland has pretty much just a pair of crumbling buildings?

The answer is pretty simple- San Francisco’s Chinatown actually has Chinese people in it. The distinctive cultural flair of the area, the storefronts, tea shops, and restaurants, are all a product of the actual residents. Sure, they play it up for the tourists, but it’s completely possible to go into a dim sum shop and be the only English speaker in the place. San Francisco’s Chinatown actually reflects an immigrant population where they can get together, speak their own language, eat their own food, etc. As someone who’s been a stranger in a foreign country, I can totally see why such a place is necessary.

Portland, on the other hand, has a big gate, a bunch of red street lamps, and some rather dubious buildings. That’s about it. What’s missing from Portland’s Chinatown is, well, Chinese people. The are near Old Town is the official Chinatown, but there are a lot more Chinese people and businesses out on 82nd Ave. In the official Chinatown you can find hipsters, drunks, and homeless, but you won’t hear anyone speaking Mandarin.

So, Portland, here’s what I’m proposing: stop pretending. Stop pretending that we have a Chinatown, because we really don’t. We have a neighborhood with some red lamp posts, and that’s about it. It is a neighborhood that I really like, but it’s not reflective of an immigrant population, it’s not an enclave that Chinese people have made for themselves. I’m not saying we should tear down the big gate or anything, but we should all acknowledge that Portland’s Chinatown is, at the end of the day, complete bullshit.

In Praise of Coffee Shops

In Portland, Social Conventions, Writing on October 8, 2009 at 4:19 pm

Working at home is possible, but it takes discipline. One must focus intensely while the objects of leisure are right there. I’ve been working on a manuscript for a while, but to write or edit at home, I have to ignore the Internet, video games, my roommates, and my books. I have to shut out people who may be over, or other stimuli that seems to show up at my house on a fairly frequent basis. Besides, this is my home. This is where I relax and do fun things, the place where I sleep, read novels, and watch movies. I associate it with idleness and off-time.

Fortunately, there are coffee shops.

I’m convinced that coffee is not really the primary product of most coffee shops. Coffee is something I adore, and if I don’t have either it or tea I usually am in for at least a noticeable headache later in the day. However, the primary product of coffee shops is really a place to sit. A place, outside of your house, to read, socialize, or work. I’ve found them an ideal place to focus on my manuscript about Japan. I finally printed out the material I have so far (224 pages, single spaced) and have been editing it for the past week and a half.

I sit there for an indeterminate amount of time, imbibing my favorite stimulant, and spilling red ink. Without fail, there is someone else with a laptop or a notepad or some other such portable object whom I often imagine working away on a similarly creative endeavor. I like the simple presence of others, and I like the atmosphere and smell, the piles of alternative weeklies in the corner, and the paintings on the walls with price tags like footnotes. Oftentimes, there’s some kind of music playing, usually jazz or some obscure imported genre that is simultaneously interesting and easy to ignore. I like that, too, a low-level white noise that eases attention to detail.

I’ve been staggering which ones I go to, and seeking out new coffee shops. Yesterday, I found a new one in Southeast, in the Hawthorne District, a converted house filled with paintings. The owner had dragged in an old-style school desk which I found too amusing not to sit at. When I went in, there was a guy on the porch reading a newspaper. He was there when I left, too. Across from me a guy with extremely long hair and hemispherical earphones sat at a laptop for the entire time I was there. A girl reading what looked to be a gigantic novel said “thanks” to the counter guy as she left, and he said “see you tomorrow!”

Not home, not an office, but another node or point of contact, another place on the map that can be used as “base,” a resting zone. If all coffee shops had was coffee, I wouldn’t go to them nearly as often, wouldn’t drink nearly as much of the stuff. I go there for the state of mind, the focus, go there to be outside and at rest at the same time.

A Most Satisfying Encounter With the Flaming Lips, a Horde of Very Nice Naked People, and a Giant Spherical Vinyl Fur-Vagina

In Music, Nudity, Portland on September 25, 2009 at 2:37 pm

K posted it, and I saw the call up. The Flaming Lips were shooting a music video in Portland, on Mt. Tabor, and they needed naked bicyclists. This was too good to pass up. I am a bicyclists, and in a few moments I can easily turn into a naked bicyclists. I, along with my friend K, were definitely going to this thing. We met up, biked to Mt. Tabor, and sought out fame, fortune, and rock ‘n roll nudity.

I was not expecting Wayne Coyne to actually be there. I imagined that the whole project was going to be overseen by a director or producer with a pre-approved shots and images to capture. A limited amount of people, I thought, would be told where to stand and what to do, and it would all be very scripted.

I was utterly and completely wrong. Instead of some functionary that I’d never heard of overseeing the shoot, The lead singer himself was addressing a crowd of semi-clothed Portlanders and explaining the dilemma at hand. Earlier in the day, Coyne and the crew had been filming people riding down a hill on their bicycles entirely naked, as was the plan. The park ranger, however, had come by and told them that such absolute nudity was not an appropriate activity upon Portland’s mini-volcano, and demanded that everyone’s bums and junk get covered up.

So, as K and I approached the crowd Coyne explained the solution: The next day the shoot would move to Sauvie Island, where full nudity would not be a problem, and there would be more space anyway. For the time being, though, he wanted to utilize the pretty environment. The solution: guerrilla nudity. On a more visible path, several people would be wearing underwear, there would be lights, and lots of whooping. It would all be a diversion, though, designed only to look like filming was going on. The real shot would be down below.

About twenty of us descended down a path for a shot of naked people pushing Coyne’s trademark hamster ball (which he calls the Space Ball) up and down a hill. “Okay,” he told us, “we have to do this quick. I don’t want anyone to get arrested or in trouble. When I say ‘go’ the underwear comes off, and as soon as we cut, put it on again.” We got around the big ball, pushed it around, and no one was completely naked for more than thirty seconds. It was still a lot of fun, but only a taste of the next day’s activities.

“Wow,” said Coyne after we’d pushed the ball up and down the hill a lot, “for a bunch of naked people you really don’t smell that bad.”

The next day’s shooting, though, was an entirely different matter.

The lot of us (and our bikes) bused out to Sauvie Island where Gus Van Sant apparently has a house and a fair amount of property, and the director, according to Coyne, was quite enthused about having his land invaded by a bunch of enthusiastic naked people. The house itself wasn’t all that opulent looking, but Van Sant has quite the enviable lawn, some nice woods, and a small beach at Sauvie Island. I could think of worse things to spend millions and millions of dollars on.

The day’s shooting consisted of a few main scenes- a longer shot of a mob of naked bicyclists, filmed on Van Sant’s sizable wooded driveway, more shots of people rolling the Space Ball around as well as us lifting it and Coyne above our heads and carrying it away. The main set piece of the day, though, involved another, similar inflatable ball. Except this one was covered in fur. And, it had a giant vinyl labia on the front of it.

Here’s a (NSFW) picture of it.

The whole album, Embryonic, is all about birth and whatnot, and the big idea of the video was that all of the naked people got shot out this giant spherical fur-vag and we were a bunch of reveling, newly-born primitives who encounter Coyne, a supposedly magical being in a crystalline Space Ball and we think that he’s special in some way or another. But, his Space Ball deflates, we see that he’s just another fleshy organism just like us, so, like any right-thinking group of whooping nudists we of course pull him from his deflated Space Ball, strip off his clothes, and then carry him off, subsequently stuffing him into the giant, hairy mother-vag that recently spat us all out. Very straightforward.

K, who was pregnant, said that the big, round fur-vag would proceed to dominate her maternal anxieties.

I was pleased to be among the twenty or so people involved in the birthing scenes, and even though I didn’t get to crawl out of the orb-shaped birthing fuzz myself, I did get to hoist a few people out of it. I can say, with a certain amount of confidence, that it was the first time in my life that I’ve ever hoisted naked strangers out of a comically large set of female genitalia. K, though, was fortunate enough to get spat out of the thing, which will probably be good practice for when she has to eject a smaller human from her various biological systems. (“I love it that you’re pregnant,” Coyne said to her, “it goes with the whole birthing, mother thing. That’s great.”) The feeling of the birth scenes was great, what with people shooting out of the giant vag and the rest of us whooping, hollering and generally carrying on in the buff. “Everybody freak out!” began to replace “Action!” as the directorial command of choice.

A bit on the nudity- I was sort of surprised at how non-sexual it all was. One would think that getting naked with a bunch of reasonably fit bicyclists would be an invitation for general bawdiness, but it seemed that everyone was trying very, very hard to not be pervy. I restrained myself from checking out the various highly attractive women too much, and in general the atmosphere was towards revelry and whimsy rather than lewdness.

There was more shooting of naked bikers, and towards the end of the day we did some night shots all carried Wayne Coyne’s naked body aloft over our naked heads. I was happy to be one of the guys hoisting him above the crowd, and can go to my grave with the knowledge that my hand has full on cupped middle-aged ass of the lead singer of the Flaming Lips, for whatever that’s worth.

The whole affair was easily the most naked people that I’ve ever seen in one location. Even after seven years in Eugene and attending Burning Man, I’ve never encountered that many bare asses in one place at one time. It was sort of freeing and relaxing, really, to just be standing around completely nude and not giving a shit. Not that I’m going to stop thinking that nudists are weird- they are. But, it was great to have an opportunity to do weird shit for a purpose. The crowd was fun, though, and I was impressed with how hands-on the Flaming Lips were with the making of their own video. It will certainly not be the product of intermediaries or a studio- it will be unequivocally theirs.

The video should be released sometime in the first half of October. Hopefully me and my ass will be in a shot or two.

A Bit of Awesome Portland-Based Smut

In Music, Portland, Sex on July 22, 2009 at 2:06 pm

This is just to joyously perverse/sexy to not share with others. Anything that puts strippers, drag queens, a furry and a superhero all together is probably going to get at least a smile out of me.

My sister and her fiancee caught Storm Large earlier this year, and had nothing but awesome things to say about her. This video makes me wish I’d caught the show.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: She lives in Portland. That’s the Park Blocks behind her in the last bit. This here is some good, Portland-grown smut, and makes me all the happier to live here. She performs her all the time, and now I feel like I’ve got some kind of moral imperative to go see her live at some point.

Yay Portland! Our shit is weird! Woo!

Moderately NSFW, by the way.

Live, Real Star Trek

In Portland, Science Fiction, Theater on July 13, 2009 at 7:39 am

You know the whole phenomenon of Shakespeare in the park? It’s great. Basically a bunch of people do a free performance of Shakespeare in a public place. Last Saturday I went to something like that, but instead of “Shakespeare” it was “Star Trek.”

Live Star Trek. It was fucking fantastic. The actors were wonderful, the audience was massively appreciative, and geeky enthusiasm ruled the day. I was amused to see one of the actors from King Lear, which I saw earlier this summer, also in this. I suppose there’s a fair amount a crossover between Shakespeare and Trek fans. Also, the whole thing was accompanied by The Fast Computers, a band whom I’d seen a few times in Eugene, and were great in this setting, providing a retro-electro background.

The episode that they chose to perform was a nice one- Amok Time, wherein Spock goes into heat and subsequently battles Kirk at the behest of a sexy Vulcan chick.

The homemade props were especially good. Both of those polearm things ended up splitting in half during the fight, to great effect. All in all, utterly awesome. My geek heart was aflutter the whole time.

And, apropos of nothing, here are a bunch of kids splotching paint all over a car.

In Which An Elephant is Utilized

In Music, Portland on July 10, 2009 at 8:26 am

The woman with the antlers on her head is Amanda Palmer, half of the Dresden Dolls. Earlier in the evening, she gave a ukulele performance in Portland’s Park Blocks. The gentleman with the deer skull staff later climbed on top of the elephant and regaled us all with a few accordion songs. A good time was had by all.

The Most Fun You Can Possibly Have Without Actually Having Sex

In Athletics, Horror, Music, Portland on June 21, 2009 at 12:39 pm

“Want some blood?”

Various bottles of the stuff were being passed around. “Thanks,” I said, and doused myself in a fair amount of it. I’d blackened my eyes, smeared white makeup all over my face, and torn up one of my dress shirts. I did not, however, have time for blood. I looked like an overzealous Misfits fan than a zombie, really, but my fellow undead were happy to fix that for me. Various other people were in lycra or street clothes, but the zealous hordes of the nonliving saw too it that they were sufficiently made up. I got myself good and red, dousing some blood on my face for good measure. I was ready to ride through Portland and demand brains.

Pedalpalooza is an annual sixteen-day series of bike events here in Portland, most of which are theme rides. Looking at the calendar, the one that I was determined to go to was the zombie ride, because, well, it was an opportunity to dress up as a zombie. Riding through Portland, shouting “BRAAAAIIINS!!!” at various pedestrians garnered us three main responses:

1- People ignoring us, pretending that a large crowd of bike-based undead were not, in fact, demanding culinary use of their grey matter. This was the most common reaction.

2- Some variant of “Woo!” This was fairly common, which I think speaks well of the citizenry of Portland. They are open-minded enough that they don’t mind restless revenants consuming said open minds.

3- Some variant of “Fuck you!” Very few people had this reaction. I decided that those who did take offense to our antics were tortured, unhappy souls who needed to get laid very badly.

We stopped at a few bars, where a few adventurous patrons allowed themselves to be bitten and slathered in fake blood. There were a few other patrons who did not acquiesce to such zombification, and they were much less exciting human beings. At a bar, though, I got a phone call from my friend L asking what I was doing.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m at the zombie ride.” I said.

“Oh,” she said, with a pausing, “I’m at the Bowie Vs. Prince ride.” Bowie Vs. Prince. At another event someone had rigged up a mobile sound system and was leading around a mobile 80s dance party that was stopping at various open spaces for dancing and antics. Long story short- my friend was able to give me directions and I was able to successfully lead a pack of zombies to an 80s dance party. When rolled up Thriller was, rather auspiciously, playing.

It was a blast- we rolled out with 1999 blasting into the evening, getting “Woos!” from various bar patrons. There was also some bike polo in there. Eventually the whole mass of people ended up at a dance party on the water under a bridge. The next day L and I formed a scavenger hunt team, biking around Portland taking pictues of cycle-themed curiosity.

The whole zombie/80s music/mobile dance party thing, though, made me think a lot about “hipsterism.” At their worst (and most people do talk about them at their worst) hipsters are shallow, image-obsessed douchebags who are only capable of interacting with anything after a safe cushion of ironic distance has been established. At its worst, “hipsterism” is alienating, cold, distant, grating, and fickle. The word “douchebag” is often appended to “hispster” for good reason.

At their very best, though, the young, creative population of a city like Portland is absolutely fantastic, a population that is not afraid of audacity or bold actions. They are a demographic that does have a particular “style” but there is a distinct lack of “one-true-wayism” to it. While things are recognizably “hipstery,” there is a definite pluralism to what can be incorporated into that aesthetic. Almost anything, if presented with a certain sensibility, is considered stylistically interesting, which I quite like.

Also, in answer to any complaints about insufficient illustration: I was having too much fun to bother with pictures. There were costumes, antics, and music, enough that I entirely forgot that I’d brought a camera.

Gayest Post EVER!

In Politics, Portland, Sex on June 16, 2009 at 5:59 pm

Puttering around Sunday morning, I thought to myself, “Well, I could sit on my ass and listen to economics podcasts, or I could go snap pictures of crazy shit at the gay pride parade.” I like to think that in my own internal brain-battles, I tend to err on the side of “crazy shit.” I pried my eyes and ears loose from the internet, took a shower and hopped on my bike. I found myself behind a rather butch array of women on mountain bikes and thought “Yep, I’m going in the right direction.” Downtown was overcast but not dreary, warm but not sweat-inducing. All in all, a good day for it.

I found myself near the start of the Parade in Portland’s nicely green South Park Blocks. A brass band was playing a song I vaguely recognized but couldn’t really place. Once it got to the chorus I recognized it as Dancing Queen, and smirked with recognition. The crowd and participants did not disappoint. Sure, most of the people were just holding signs and waving and such, but there was no shortage of weird costumes makeup. The gentlemen below were not extras from Amadeus, but rather on a float promoting affordable housing.

This guy was waving around a sword and shouting “God save the queen!” a lot. I have no idea what he meant by that, but the atmosphere was only improved by having a Don Quixote show up. He was waving that sword around quite enthusiastically, and I wished that I could have directed him to an obliging windmill.

Inevitable political digression: There were plenty of people (like the folks below) who were parading about their own unrelated political agendas at the parade. I can understand why they’d do this- the liberal, open-minded population of Portland was out in force, and they wanted to both energize the base and target a demographic that would be more inclined to agree with them.

I found their presence, though, to be a little weird. The whole atmosphere of the parade was one of joy and liberty. Even though I’m not gay, I do appreciate what the gay movement has done for everyone. Because of lots of really dedicated people demanding respect, the field of what is sexually “legitimate” has been expanded for all of us. Even though there’s still a lot of work to be done with regards to reformatting the stupid bits of American culture, there was a general atmosphere of celebration and achievement. A lot has changed for the better, and we should really be happy about that. Oregon used to have a governor who was an out-and-proud member of the KKK. Now, Portland has a mayor who’s an out-and-proud gay dude. That’s real progress.

Hearing familiar angry shouts about how we need a revolution or whatever clashed with that feeling. I suppose the right has it’s own contingent who love being victims as well. In the midst of party-town were a bunch of people whom I think secretly love being “oppressed.”

But enough about the angry socialists. Check out this dude’s nipples!

Gyration!

Other, different nipples!

Zombies!

I found this group especially endearing, actually. It was gay parents and their kids, and for whatever reason, they’d decided to dress up as monsters. I like the idea that whatever someone’s aesthetic is, it’s welcome and legitimate. Whatever sort of style you’ve got (in this case “zombie”) is a potential catalyst for niftiness. This might sound trite, but I like aesthetic and stylistic pluralism. Seriously! Hooray for multitudes! Hooray for the varied panoply of people and stuff! Woo!

And of course, hooray for mostly naked chicks. Yes, most of them would want absolutely nothing to do with me or my filthy, filthy testosterone (unless some of them had unladylike anatomy that was not on display) but I found them visually appreciative nonetheless. Also, a rather tall drag queen told me that I was “beautiful.” I said, “Thank you, so are you!” I’ll take praise from all quarters.

All in all, a lot of fun, and quite the display of awesomeness and drove home my admiration of Portland. Since I’ve been back, I’ve really come to appreciate this place, more than I was ever able to in high school, when I last lived here. I know that there are lots of other fun, liberal cities, but this one is mine. This place, this effusive and varied place, is my home. The next time I leave it will probably be for good, but in the meantime I’m immensely happy to find that my geographical parent is more awesome than I could have ever hoped for.