The Music That Makes Us

April 13, 2016April 25, 20164 Comments

I’ve lived in the Kenton neighborhood for seven years but my experience with the music in my immediate surroundings has been random and sporadic. Disjecta, the arts organization, is exploring the music made in the Kenton with an exhibit called “The Music That Makes Us.” Disjecta explains that the exhibit “investigates a neighborhood through its music, and emphasizes the value of diverse musical expression within a community.”

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Setting up at Disjecta for the Kenton Street Fair Fundraiser.

All neighborhoods have their musicians, unsung heroes who go unnoticed but this exhibit gives me a chance to explore mine. It may seem like an odd thing. I can’t recall a time when I’ve read anything about any neighborhood in the city making better music or being more creative than any other neighborhood. While we may have our arts districts, I realize the exhibit is not about competition, but a chance to explore the specifics, music wise, of a community. I’m lucky it’s happening here. I have a good opportunity, with little effort, to be introduced to the creative people who are around that I didn’t even know are around me.

Make overs and music

Make over and music.

Since the exhibit opened I’ve learned some things. One of the barbers who works at Bart’s Barber Shop not only cuts hair, he’s a musician too, as is one of the guys who works at Cason’s Butcher Shop. It has me seeing these men in a different dimension and making the people in my neighborhood less mysterious. The other revelation is that I’ve found out that Norman Sylvester lives in my neighborhood. He’s a living legend and a local celebrity to me. I’ve seen him on TV on AM Northwest and been to a concert at Kenton Park. I clipped a photo I came across of him with B.B. King. I even met him at Jeff Dodge’s place when he was dropping off some video footage. Recently he was on the cover of the Portland Observer and there he was was at the exhibit opening wearing a sharp suit. I was a bit too shy to mob him.

Music that makes us wide

My own investigations of my neighborhood’s music have amounted to seeing bands at the yearly street fair and occasionally at the Kenton Club. I caught some great music spilling out of the church in downtown Kenton one Sunday morning and I’ve also heard bands practicing in neighborhood basements. For a time my next door neighbor had a band that practiced at her place. Hearing their sound reminded me of playing music in a garage. Once I noticed our chickens bobbing their heads to the submerged rhythms.

music that makes us cu

When I went to the exhibit opening, I saw a serpentine pattern of music related objects laid out in the room on tables that included sheet music, instruments, photos, a music stand covered in stickers and Norman Sylvester’s press clippings that his wife has gathered over the years. A drum kit was on display and someone was banging away on a piano. The objects gave me a sense of the ephemera that goes into music making but it’s great to see that the exhibit is multi-dimensional offering up a couple of chances to hear the music created in Kenton.
Meat and music

Meat and music.

Two events will be held in association with the exhibit. The first will be a walking tour which starts at Disjecta at noon on Saturday, April 16th. The walk lasts 90 minutes. The tour guides are members of the Portland State University Art and Social Practice program and will present audio recordings of field recordings and interviews. If you can’t make the walk you can still listen to the tour.

The other event is an afternoon concert celebrating the exhibit. Who’s going to show up? Which neighbors are going to reveal themselves to be musicians? How many more proverbial dots are going to be connected? The only way to find out is to attend the show at Disjecta on Saturday April 23 from 4–8pm for The Music That Makes Us Festival.

The Trophy Wife

April 6, 2016April 8, 20164 Comments

Marci MacFarlane is a fellow blogger who was kind enough to look me up so we could discuss a couple of my blog posts. I later found out she was the owner of The Trophy Wife art car. I had not seen it around but last August I happened to catch it parked outside the North Portland Tool Library where Marci works. When she’s not keeping her art car in tip top shape, Marci is one of the curators of the public art that can be found at the Pittman Addition HydroPark. I appreciated the opportunity to ask her a few questions about her art car creation.

Photo courtesy of Marci MacFarlane

What I was wondering was what it was that inspired you to create an art car? Well, I’ve had an art car since ’88, I think, my first art car, it’s kind of funny, I was dating this guy at the time and his ex-girlfriend was selling her car and so he went down to California and brought it up and I bought it from her, it was a Dodge Dart, a great car, it was an old cop car and one day I was at school and he said, “oh, I saw the Dart the other day and I thought that’s great Gwen’s in town but then I remember you bought it.” And I was like, “really, you saw that car and you were all excited because you thought your ex-girlfriend was in town.” I went over to a friend’s house, Jeff Skinner, who owns the Tree of Shame on Sumner and I’m like, “I have to do something. I can’t have this car look like that.” So my first car, I painted it bright orange and we glued AstroTurf to the top of it so it had green all over the top of it. It was fun because I worked at Powell’s and I’d come downtown and one time when I was at school downtown somebody glued a bunch of animals to the top of it so it looked like a little forest, it looked like a little farm, a bunch of those blew off because they didn’t use very good glue. And another time, I was downtown working by Blitz brewery and I came out from work and I’m like, “what the hell is on top of my car” and someone had cut out what looked like a putting green and they had a flag sticking up and there was a little golf ball on top it and it was on top of my car and there was nobody around. This was so weird. So that ran for a really long time and then I killed it by running out of oil. I had another one that was a Chevy Nova—glued glass all to the side, that was bright blue and then I had astro turf on the top of that but it was a blue and black AstroTurf and that lasted a long time ‘cause it was a Chevy Nova as my friend said you know they call those “No Goes” down in Mexico. It finally died. I didn’t have one for a while, but the one I have now, The Trophy Wife, the car was just trashed it was trashed. He bought it from the original owner and he ended up, you know, taking it to one of these title places and he needed two hundred dollars so he was like, “do you want to buy this for two hundred dollars?” I’m like sure. It was maroon and it was just ugly. I wasn’t sure what I was going do with it but that’s the whole idea, you buy a really ugly car and make it look pretty. A friend of mine, a good friend of mine who died in 2009, Tom Kennedy, saw the car and he was like, “you know this would look so cool if you cut the top off and you had fins on the back. I was like “really, I can’t cut the top off” and he was like, “yeah you can.” I said we live in Oregon. He was like, “So what.”So that’s what happened. Although Tom died before we were ever able to get the fins on it. And that’s where that last one came from and it’s one of my other cars, the Nova, I had, I had gone to, have you heard of Scrap? So I had gone there when they were on Broadway and they had all these bowling trophies and she said, “as many as you can fit in a bag for 10 dollars.” I was like, “okay.” So I got them home and now I have 50 bowling trophies, they were all kinds of trophies, but I was like, I’m just going to put them on the hood of the car. So I started drilling them in and putting them on the hood of the car and then when I got the convertible–when I made the convertible, that’s when I was like, “oh this is going to be the Trophy Wife. This is the Trophy Wife.” That’s how that one came along.

I was wondering about the concept and so that inspiration came from a bag of bowling trophies? Yeah, and my Ford Nova, I had trophies on that, so I kind of started collecting them and people would give them to me because they would see them on the car and then like I said this is perfect, cut it off, paint it bright pink then kind of play on the whole trophy wife idea because at the time I wasn’t married. So it was kind of more of a joke, you know, like “hey.” I’m a little difficult to get along with so my friends joked about it like, “yeah you’re the trophy wife.”

How long did it end up taking to make? Really not that long, cutting off the top and popping out the back, we did it all within a summer like two, three months. I kind of took time, I pulled out the seats one weekend and recovered them and put them back in and everything was in stages. But I mean it would take about 3 months. I did that one, that was 2002, the summer of 2002.

Were there any more kind of adventures as far as collecting all the trophy parts? I have gone to events. Have you ever heard of Combine Demolition Derby? That’s fun. Up in Lind, Washington there’s this thing called the Combine Demolition Derby and it’s always the weekend of Father’s Day and we went to it in the late ‘90’s. Somebody was like, “oh we have to go to this.” The idea is four combines go in and they bash the hell out of each other until one of them comes out and then the ones that are left after that, because there is usually five or six heaps, go in and bash each other until somebody comes out. You can only do twelve welds per combine to alter it and the thrashers can’t be more than, I think it was, 12 or 15 inches off the ground and the thrashes don’t work. So we started going up to that and one time we were up in Ritzville and we’re at a bar and there was like three different art cars out there because we’d go up there and they wanted us to be in the parade which is fun because it’s only three blocks long and then they’d feed us pulled pork and potato salad in the park. So we’re in this bar and this guy is talking, “did you see those cars?” and we were like, “yeah, those are ours.” And he’s like, “Yeah, who’s is the trophy one?” I’m like “well, that’s mine.” He goes, “I got something. You wait here. I’m going to run home and we’re like, “really?” And he came back and he had a trophy that he won, I think it was bowling, and it was a horse’s ass. And he’s like, “will you put this on your car?” and I said, “sure let’s go out and put it on right now. “So we went out and put it on—the horse’s ass on the car. There’s been other ones every now and then friends will be like, “oh I was at this garage sale and I saw this great trophy.” I have a couple of Police Officer shooting (trophies), animals are really hard to find, bowling ones are easy but then I’ve had people that have won them, you know when they were kids and they’ve given them to me and I’m like, “sure let’s put it on.”

Well then do you have to replace them? Sometimes yeah, I do, you know the plastic ones get old and brittle so eventually they break off and then I had, what I’d call the apocalypse one year, I think it was 2012, where I came outside in the morning and somebody had broken five different trophies off and had unscrewed a bunch of other ones. So you know, it is what it is. And every now and then when I’m downtown I’ll lose one. One time I had parked downtown on Burnside and Broadway, and I was like, “man, I shouldn’t park here, I’m going to lose one and we came back and one of them was broken off and I’m like, “oh man, really and then I found it in the back seat of the car next to a PBR can that said sorry and it was a full beer and I’m like that’s really nice they accidently broke off the trophy and they left me a PBR because as you can see people can reach in and take what ever they want out of the car.

Trophy Wife 3

Photo courtesy of Marci MacFarlane

Are you part of the art car scene then? Somewhat. I’ve gone to a couple of events. My friend Victor has done a lot more of those ‘cause the Trophy Wife isn’t really a great traveller and a lot of the events take place down in San Francisco, although last summer my husband took it up to, ‘cause I had to work, he took it up to Seattle, the Fremont Fair and all the art cars go up there and it’s really great ‘cause Kelly who runs that gets donations from a lot of businesses and so they pay for you and they put you up and they feed you for like four days and you just have to park your car at the Fremont Fair on Saturday and Sunday. I’ve gone down to San Francisco for, I think it’s called “WekFest” and this next year is going to be the 10^th anniversary of it. One year in 2006 we were down in San Jose outside of the San Jose art museum. They did a whole art car festival and they had a bunch of cars inside. They had the rest of us parked outside. It was a whole day thing so I’ve done a few of them. But more and more lately the car is kind of getting a little old.

Is there local activity for art cars? There used to be. There’s a lot of them in Portland and there’s a lot of them around here. We did the Hawthorne Fair one time and what they did was they did the parade and then the cars went through that and then they parked up on the side in front of the businesses along Hawthorne because they block off the street well, some of the businesses complained that too many people were crowding in front of the cars and they couldn’t get into the business and so we didn’t go back to that anymore. And then we’ve done the Alberta Street Fair, I think once or twice, and it was the same thing, the businesses were like, “the cars, the cars there’s too many people looking at the cars and they can’t get into my business.” And we tried to explain, “that’s awesome you have like twenty people standing outside your business, like now you need to get them in. We got ‘em here, you need to get ‘em in.” Haven’t done a whole lot lately although when everyone heads up to Seattle in June a lot of them stop over here because Tom Kennedy, he was a huge art car guy, he’s been an art car guy forever and his mom lives up here so everybody stops here and sees his mom because everybody knows Tom or used to.

The one last thing, I was wondering about was the type of car and then what made it a good fit to be an art car? Well, anything that’s cheap and ugly because people sell cars that are ugly for cheap and all you need is a coat of paint. I always try to get cars that I can work on or I can get something done easily. When I was down in San Francisco with the Trophy Wife a couple of years ago my alternator went out on the side of the road and it was awesome because we called a couple of places and they had what they called a Triage Van so if any of the cars broke down the Triage Van would stay with you and get you, called a place, went there, got the part, was back at the car, had it all installed in like an hour and a half to two hours. Whereas, you can’t do that nowadays. I mean you get a car nowadays you’re not going to be able to do that with the newer cars and you really need to know how to work on your car. And so I always look for the older things and especially if there’s dings or damages or stuff like that. Like the Trophy Wife, the back seat on the passenger side, I think it got hit at one point or some thing so it was having troubles opening and closing and I just finally closed it and sealed it so you can’t get in on that side, that’s all. You just crawl over the back.

Trophy Wife 1.JPG

Marci MacFarlane as the Trophy Wife

Any reactions to it? Oh people love it. I have a PA out on the front, that’s the one thing where people are like, “I don’t think we should give you a PA you have a loud enough voice as it is but I have a PA in the front of it and I pretty much try to play Wizard of Oz that’s about it. I did have Willy Wonka for a while but people didn’t recognize the songs. I got a couple of others but it just wasn’t the same but the Wizard of Oz, I mean, you drive down a street on a sunny day and everybody knows that, everybody knows all the songs, people stop, they smile, they wave and it’s just, it’s cheerful. My husband always wants to pull out and sing on the PA because I actually have a phone. Have you seen the phone in front? So it’s literally like a hand receiver like this and it’s hooked up to my PA and so you can just pick the phone up and you speak into it and if you have it on the right station and it broadcasts anything you say out the front. So he likes to sing out of the front of that. But mostly it’s just you know, it’s smiles. There’s a few times when I’ve parked downtown and I’m in a hurry and I’ll come back to the car and I’ll be like, “there’s like nine people standing there and I don’t want to get into the car and I’m not going to be able to drive away” ‘cause then they’re like, “can I take a picture of you? Can I take a picture of you? Is that your car? That’s so cool.” And I always offer to help ‘em do it to their car, like if you want to and they’re like, “what do you do when it rains?” And I’m like, “I get wet. I get wet, there’s no top. It doesn’t come back.”

Check out Marci’s blog: http://sewingwithcupcake.blogspot.com

See a brief video version of this blog post: https://youtu.be/_Xk32wWQoa8

Quotable Graffiti

March 30, 2016March 31, 2016Leave a comment

I like graffiti that makes a statement. If I can get a literary reference out of the deal I’m more than half way home. It’s juicy to chew on some thought while experiencing rampant vandalism. It’s feels like a pyrrhic victory.

So It Goes.

Off the top of my head I can’t tell you the book but I know this slogan appeared in a Kurt Vonnegut novel. I know this even without having read his books since my teenage years, because he used the phrase often in the book. Seeing it on this traffic warning sign is oddly comforting. I’m not sure how it relates to the cul-de-sac being sealed off by the guard rail, but it feels like a vague philosophy of life, especially if you spend any time in the area that surrounds Columbia Blvd. A quick internet consultation revealed that the line is from the book Slaughterhouse Five and that the saying relates to existentialism, one of the greatest of all the “isms,” next to bagism of course.

http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/why-does-author-continually-use-quot-goes-quot-9991

Anger is an energy.

How great does it get to look across Columbia Blvd and see a Johnny Lydon lyric from the PIL song Rise spray painted on the trailer of a semi-truck?—that being a rhetorical question, I don’t expect an answer, but I have to say I find it oddly inspiring. The rig seems inoperable or I would find even more inspiration in imagining this semi traveling across the country giving people in traffic a chance to read and contemplate Lydon’s words. For now it’s a message tucked away that I peek at when I’m heading down Columbia Blvd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN-GGeNPQEg

Revolt!

Not necessarily a specific quote from anyone besides the odd rebellious peasant or serf from back in the day, this plain message spoke to me. I found it somehow ironic to be plastered on the side of a crumbling shed. The exclamation point is a nice touch. Seeing this enroute to Woodlawn Elementary School, I had to wonder if it was giving the kids any ideas. I found comfort in knowing that they’re not that organized.

Fight War Not Wars

Fight War 2

Photo by Ronna Craig

This message jumped out on us in the dark of night down by the frog wetlands past Linnton. It sure seems to be the kind of quote that I would liked to have heard from Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr or at the very least Muhammad Ali. After finding out it’s from a Crass song it makes more sense as a punk sentiment. Having anything to do with fighting could hardly be related to a message of nonviolence. It’s enough of a song or slogan to inspire legible train graffiti. Considering words on trains made me wonder why freight cars are never employed as a means of being moving billboards. It could only have something to do with trainspotting never really catching on.

Oregon Decal Obsession Part 2

March 23, 2016March 25, 20162 Comments

I’m back to my Oregon Decal obsession and until I find out otherwise, I’m convinced it all started with the green heart in the state boundary design. I’m working on tracking down the creator of this image which really shouldn’t be too hard but my self-imposed deadline is approaching and I’m still planning on one more part to this series before I exorcise this obsession from my consciousness. The last blog post was titled Oregon Decal Spawn Part 1, or some such title, which in hindsight seems terrible so I reworked the title based on what these decals have become to me—something of an obsession. While maybe a casual obsession, they’re images I’m focused on collecting. A snapshot is satisfying enough, the need to possess some tangible remnant of these decals hasn’t over taken me. I have only seen a few of these decals for sale which means tracking them down would have proven impossible.

Adventure Awaits (1).jpg

While on my bike my eyes scan the bumpers of parked cars. The state outline usually jumps out at me. After considering whether the design is something I’ve seen before I either stop and grab a picture or keep pedaling. I’m surprised by the number and variety of designs that represent all manner of Portland and Oregon related subjects. I want to think that as Portland-centric as we are, a Portland border would be a far more specific and authentic a representation, in some cases, of this sticker concept. There’s only one problem. The Portland city limits prove to be a design flaw mess. No one would recognize it and it would never work as a decal outline.

streets

Portland: Not a decal inspiring border.

Last summer I ran into Rob Campbell who is among other things a T-shirt designer. He showed me a T-shirt design which incorporated the use of the Oregon border. This got me blabbing about my Oregon decal obsession. I asked him why he thought so many people use the state to frame designs. He was succinct when he explained that it’s “effective.” And that makes sense. As I pointed out before, people immediately know the image involves regionalism, whatever the symbol happens to be, sometimes it’s not clear, but it’s stuff in this state or even something being promoted specific to Portland. Regardless, it makes for an eye-catching decoration for a car bumper or anywhere else it gets stuck.

So let’s get to it.

Love Portland City Limits

Why not love Portland? Again if you slapped these words on top of the city limits map it wouldn’t look right so the use of the state border. Everyone knows there’s a city named Portland in Oregon.

It’s greek to me, except it’s not Greek, it’s Latin. It’s the Latin translation of the state motto which when translated back into English is: “She flies with her own wings.” Who knew you could get a lesson in history and Latin from a sticker.

Tie-dye could be symbolic of almost anything but seems specific to Dead Head/hippie culture. The top design is bold and colorful and has heart so I’m not going to trip out on it. The other one has a peace sign which is also a nice touch. If I’m any kind of decal critic, well these messages of peace and love are mellowing me out. Tie-dye is a bit of a psychedelic cliché but I have an appreciation for colorful design

This one is saying all kinds of things about Portland. It references the White Stag sign, mentions old town and frames it with an eye catching golden state border. The quality of the photo does it no justice but this vehicle owner is loving Portland.

These two seem like homemade designs. The stripes, rays of sun maybe, made me think of Arizona. The other sticker looks like a basic art project with the tiny blue heart sticker marking Portland’s location on the pink state map.

Every Portland sports team does the Oregon decal with gusto. Thorns, PSU Vikings, and Rip City!

Any kind of advertising receives a boast with a state of Oregon decal design.

Northside shoes were founded in Portland. The little heart is a nice touch and for whatever reason the state is depicted as dripping, or is it oozing?

Even Pabst ran like a stallion/unicorn with an Oregon design for their Pabst music festival.

And yeah, Portland and Oregon have a few tea drinkers.

Adorned plays off the Keep Portland Weird campaign requesting that people “Keep Oregon adorned.”

Well, no one can exactly advertise snow but it’s another mix of borrowing an advertising slogan and mixing it with a state decal.

Even Bernie Sanders gets in on the act with an Oregon inspired reminder to vote for him.

Do we have bees and bartenders or martini makers in this state? According to these decals, we do!

This one doesn’t make me groan. I could not resist that lame pun. It’s seems like a statement about farming or it insinuates that the owner of the car is a native Oregonian. It could well be there as a show of support for local farming or hauling around vegetables.

Oregon Crabbing (1)

Other decals offer identifiers by way of symbols. We run half marathons, love animals, depending on the foot print, crabbing and ride bikes. It can all be spoken in decal.

This one speaks for itself. It has one of the best uses of the Oregon border since it serves as a reminder of the original inhabitants of these parts.

Gotta run to look over more car bumpers. The obsession will rear it’s ugly head again in this blog soon enough.

Oregon Border (1)

Note to Mrs. Yuchmow: I feel the need to justify my use of the word “and” to start a sentence. I know you taught Will Simmons from the Pittsburgh Orbit that this usually isn’t a good thing to do but in the case of my usage it needed to happen.

Trimet Tales: The Final Chapter Part 2

March 16, 2016August 12, 20214 Comments

It was a simple Facebook post from Jovana a while back. It struck me when she said she was giving up taking public transportation due to obnoxious people. It had me wondering what it took to make that decision. At last year’s Ugly Christmas Sweater Party, I sat down with Jovana to find out. Nate’s comments were appreciated as well because he was familiar with the legendary lady in question.

Jovana: So remember that big lady who was on the bus.

Nate: Yeah, I’ve ridden on the bus with her.

Jovana: She would be on the phone all of the time.

Nate: The entire trip.

Jovana: Yes, and she was really obnoxious and I would dread getting on the bus with her.

Nate: Six years ago when I rode the bus she was on the same bus all the time and I couldn’t believe—I was like, oh no not her. I would get off the bus. I would wait twenty minutes for the next bus to avoid her. I swear to God.

Jovana: It was awful. So my first experience with the bus was, I had not ridden the bus until this summer, this past summer.

Nate: You hadn’t ridden anything TriMet related.

Jovana: When was that May?

Nate: Yeah.

Jovana: June, something like that. So I would ride it from downtown from the big pink building, US Bank Corp. tower, there’s a bus right in front of that. I’d take it to Nate’s work in Tigard and, I don’t know, it’s maybe like ten stops. I would get on the bus and the very next stop she would get on the bus. This woman, she’s a big lady. She’s white. I know far too much about her life. She’s a temp at some place.

Nate: She’s big. She’s disproportionately big.

Jovana: Yeah.

Nate: She’s just big. From the waist she’s got this, you know those things you used to bounce on as a kid.

Jovana: The top and the bottom.

Nate: Like two of those together. That’s the lower portion of her body. She takes up at least three seats on the bus.

Jovana: Yeah…So you know people, generally, they’re not on the phone on the bus or other forms of transportation because it’s loud and there is a lot of attention or whatever. People read to themselves. A lot of people are quiet. This woman, she couldn’t hear. She was screaming into the phone.

The Portland Orbit: Oh no!

Jovana: And personal things like how her job is really awful. She’s a temp at this place. She’s been there so long. They won’t give her a permanent position and she thinks it’s because she’s a woman. She’s yelling at her 14-year-old daughter, I don’t know, something about shoes, I remember, like screaming on the phone. This happened four or five times, every time I would get on the bus, argghhh, and if she was not on the bus—whoo wee, this is going to be a great ride. And she would always sit right across from me.

Orbit: Oh God!

Jovana: Right across or a little bit to the right, always within kicking distance

Nate: Yeah, because the bus is not a lot of space then when someone who’s not normal sized, all of a sudden, they’re in your lap.

Jovana: She was loud every single time. She was bitching about everything. Why don’t people like me? It was like because you’re so loud and rude and listen to yourself and no wonder no one wants to hear this and then she would gossip about people. She was irritated about them and other people gossiping, I was like you’re fucking gossiping about them here, right here, I can hear who you’re complaining about.

Orbit: I guess I was wondering, like, what I had written about, I was trying to figure out why people aren’t more conscious of other people. They just feel like they need to make their phone conversation. That supersedes everything.

Nate: Yeah!

Jovana: I think people are just oblivious.

Nate: Yeah!

Jovana: They have no idea that there are other people on the bus, other people on the road…

Nate: Or other people on the planet. They think their problems are the universe’s problems.

Jovana: They have limited perspectives

Nate: There was an attack on America in 2001? When was that?

Jovana: Yeah.

Nate: They have no idea, no concept of anything.

Jovana: Some people are that way. They have no idea that they are not the only person in the world.

Nate: They tell me that everyday in traffic. I don’t know if I believe it.

Orbit: Did that kind of color your whole TriMet experience.

Jovana: I hate it. I don’t like…

Orbit: Because you think that’s going to happen again?

Jovana: It’s going to happen again and there is nothing you can really do about it. As much as I wanted to say hey lady stop talking can you just be quiet, I only have three more stops, you can’t really say that. Maybe I should have said that. The bus driver isn’t going to do anything about that and all the other people on the bus are feeling the same way. I haven’t ridden the bus since summer time. It’s obnoxious and I would much rather wait at work, spend an extra hour at work by the time Nate comes down then have to go sit on the bus. You have to listen to everyone, it’s crowded, everyone is in a hurry like we were just talking about. Nobody has any perception of what everyone else is doing. It’s just like all I can see is myself.

Nate: Do you remember when I told you about how I was on the bus and I had my headphones visibly in and people would just talk to me and I’d look at them and go, what, okay and then just hope to God they wouldn’t talk to me again. And they’re not friends they’re complete strangers and you try to look as mean as possible.

Jovana: My mean face doesn’t look right.

Nate: I can do approachable really easily.

Orbit: Was there any straw that broke the camel’s back or did you have the opportunity to not have to take it?

Jovana: I suppose not everyone would have the same opportunity to not take it but I was able to be like you can just come and pick me up after work and I’ll just wait here. It would be nice sometimes to leave work and then get over to Nate’s, that extra half an hour that he doesn’t have to drive would be nice to not have to put him through that because traffic people are the worst.

Orbit: Gonna see that lady again?

Jovana: God, I hope not. I know what area she’s in, any downtown bus is probably not going to happen for me, probably not in the east side or west side because I don’t like those people too.

Nate: The fact that I ran into her too.

Jovana: Yeah.

Nate: That’s was a long time ago, totally inconsiderate. I had to turn up the music as loud as I could on my phone and it was like really is this really happening?

Jovana: And people would have to sit next to her and she’s screaming on the phone and these poor people are like trying to block it out as much as they can. She’s the worst, whoever she is?

Mean face practice off the bus!

Tip of the pin to Josh G. for a link to this site: http://trimetdiaries.com

As always we salute the rants:

http://rantingsofatrimetbusdriver.blogspot.com/?m=1

The Ghost Bike of Killingsworth

March 9, 2016June 10, 2017Leave a comment

It gave me pause, the white bike, a familiar object, alone and riderless, chained to a street sign. I noticed it last spring while cruising up and down Killingsworth Street on my way to substitute teaching jobs. The nickname “ghost bike” came to mind. It seemed to only represent tragedy, an accident, death. It implied that something awful had happened at that spot with the bike serving as a reminder.

The Internet was full of links to information and photos. Still I hung back from researching. I wasn’t ready to dig in.

When we moved to Portland we had an avid bike riding neighbor. I’m more of a commuter type, but this guy went on long bike rides around town. He mentioned having had a couple of intense bike accidents. I began to expect the same fate. Sooner or later I feared I’d suffer a serious crash that would involve scrapes or broken limbs. I’ve been lucky so far. I’ve suffered only two minor falls. Once wherI got tangled up with the Max tracks and fell over. Another was a low speed, goofball flip over my handle bars that earned me a compliment from a nearby biker but caused no damage. I’ve had my share of wild riding when I’m late for work but I try to be safe.

Wikipedia talks about the bikes being set up as roadside memorials where cyclists have been killed or injured. The Willamette Week, in an article from October of 2005, mentioned that the ghost bike project in Portland was started by Forrest Burris to honor his brother Christopher who had been killed on Martin Luther King Blvd. Of course anything and all things bike related are well covered by BikePortland.org. I admit this was about as much research as I was willing to do. I don’t want to associate a name and details with the ghost bike on Killingsworth. It makes that much more intense.

A bike conscious place like Portland provides bike lanes and bike corridors that create the means for a alternative transportation system. I’m hoping people driving in cars and riding on bikes take time to consider the ghost bike. It’s a worthy reminder if it helps people slow down and be a tiny bit safer.

While looking online for ghost bike information, I was struck by a link that led to a list of people who had been killed on bikes in Portland. It was a stark reminder of the risks of cycling. It had me considering the need to read and obey stop signs and be careful about pulling into and riding with traffic. I hope it makes me more aware of bike riders when I’m driving. The ghost bike is a bit like that “there but for the grace of God go I,” saying. I have to remind myself to steer clear of becoming a roadside memorial. Looking at these pictures I took last spring has the ghost bike doing what it’s supposed to do. It haunts me.

See also a Portland Orbit video piece on this subject: https://youtu.be/kKuYhNIFaRE

Paint Paul!

March 2, 2016June 10, 20173 Comments

The Portland Orbit reported in April of 2015 that the Paul Bunyan statue in the Kenton neighborhood was due for cleaning. Still it’s likely coincidental that volunteers have assembled and progress is being made to make this happen. In the mean time Paul has been fading away to the point where I worry that he may become translucent.

Last paint job in 2009

I’ve appreciated Paul for a long time. While visiting Portland in the summer of 2007 I saw the statue which is sure to overwhelm anyone with a roadside attraction gene. It’s not just that he’s now a neighbor, he’s also a terrific landmark. He’s number one, with the Dancing Bear a close second. When describing the location of Kenton I mention the Paul Bunyan statue and invariably people have driven past it at some point and they have a sense of where I live.

Second ranked Kenton Landmark.

It’s not only the sooty grime and faded and peeling paint that needs attention. Paul may also be suffering from structural damage. The dude was born in 1959 so he has some old bones. All of this is going to take some dinero.

Paul as Timbers fan.

Thanks to some amazing volunteer work a committee has put together a fundraising site to raise money. Along with background information about the project, the web site includes old photographs of Paul Bunyan through the years. I’m hoping it inspires people to kick in a few bucks to bring Paul back from the brink of becoming the world’s largest invisible man statue.

Visit the website and make a donation: http://www.paintpaulpdx.org

Check out a visual version of this post: https://youtu.be/g95aGboRoIY

Next post: The Ghost Bike of Killingsworth

A Month Without Coffee

February 24, 2016August 12, 20211 Comment

It was decided. The new year became the time to change the eating habits in our household. It’s like the character, Jules Winnfield, played by Samuel L. Jackson in Quentin Tarantino’s movie Pulp Fiction, says, “my girlfriend’s a vegetarian which pretty much makes me a vegetarian.” I took it as an opportunity to experience something I’d wondered about for a while which was whether or not I could stop drinking coffee for any amount of time. I decided a month was the right duration to use for this challenge.

My coffee habit had gone into hyper drive over the last couple of years. A rough estimate had me up to five cups a day, but it was the constant focus about when I was going to have my next cup, the expense, the always having to buy it, make it, the packing the thermos for work, the extra cup or two when I should have laid off, the jitters and occasional insomnia when I thought I could drink coffee at night or late in the afternoon that made it all seem like too much.

The first realization about what I was doing was that my timing was wrong. Winter is the best time to wake up with something warm to drink. I picked the wrong time to stop drinking coffee. Going cold turkey presented physical challenges. By Sunday evening of the day I stopped, I felt my body heating up, followed by a massive headache. That evening my skin was flushed. I threw up and couldn’t get off the floor for an hour. All signs pointed to caffeine withdrawal. The next morning my headache was gone and I felt fine enough despite the empty hole in my morning ritual. My self-imposed coffee stoppage had begun.

Things started to feel whatever I thought normal should be. I know I was spacey and sluggish, but I thought I was managing. I got jealous when I saw people walking down the street with coffee. There were cravings. It was tough to see a guy standing outside of Figure Plant drinking from a mug, not that I had thought about coffee jacking him, that much. My coffee obsession leveled off. Weekend afternoons were tough when all I could think about was going out for coffee but I had a point to prove. One afternoon my wife smelled the fumes of a cup of decaf coffee I’d made. Ronna explained that what I was really detoxing from was uric acid. What? I was thinking, there’s acid in coffee?

There’s a mystique about coffee and coffee shops that I’ve tried to make a part of my Portland experience. When we first moved here there was time to hang out. I remember writing to friends back east about how I was sitting around in the coffee shop drinking hair bender coffee. Living in Portland at a time when I had no job gave me a chance to hang out. It felt like freedom. A couple was talking to their realtor at the old North Star coffee shop and the mystique grew. In Portland people do business over a cup of coffee. Now the coffee shop lifestyle seems to equal time and money. Something that’s in short supply. Still there’s nothing like sitting in an old building, sipping from a mug, taking a breather, soaking in the ambiance. Usually there’s no way to tell who the unpublished novelists are with everyone pecking away on laptops. There usually aren’t frantic scribblers around and I mostly end up reading old newspapers during coffee shop visits.

There’s great coffee places around and I’m sure with a bit of searching or through good old proximity a comfortable fit can be made for anyone who needs their own space. Arbor Lodge Coffee has been a nice place to visit. I appreciate the bottomless cup at Cup which replaced Northstar. No Wave Coffee, off of Lombard, plays crazy good music, but you might expect that from the name. The Bison Coffee House was an oasis on rainy days when I found myself subbing in the Cully neighborhood and Posies adds a touch of class and character while filling a huge void in downtown Kenton and it’s only a block away.

In the end I found I could survive a month without coffee. I’ve since gotten back on the wagon. The light at the end of the tunnel kept me going. I was counting the days. It was a sad, but due to poor planning, my fast ended at a 7/11 one morning before work. Somedays any coffee is coffee enough for me. The coffee obsession has roared to life, but I also noticed that it’s got my brain and body moving again acting like an internal lubricant. The Tin Man didn’t need oil, just a pot of coffee. I survived thirty coffeeless days and realized that in the event of an earthquake, supply chain disruption, coffee bean blight or a change in my daily routine, I’ll at least know I can live without coffee, not well, but I made it a month and I’ve lived to tell about it.

A Night For Frogs

February 17, 2016July 19, 2017Leave a comment

I saved a frog’s life but I didn’t have time to think about it. As soon as I delivered it to a white bucket to await transport to the wetlands, I was off in search of another frog hopping on wet pavement towards a certain demise that awaited if she found her way to Highway 30.

Proper frog handling technique.

An initial orientation meeting at the Linnton Community Center about volunteering to rescue frogs was an eye opener. I was introduced to the plight of the Northern red-legged frogs who need to get to the wetlands from the hills past Linnton, specifically in the area of Harborton Road. The barrier is four lanes of treacherous highway. Years ago after discovering that frogs were unable to reach the wetlands safely, a group organized volunteer crews to help save them. They now meet seven days a week in the evening during the migration season which generally runs from December to March. The conditions for frog migration have to be just right. Frogs head to the wetlands for mating and egg laying on rainy nights when the temperature is above 45 degrees. My wife, Ronna and I signed on to volunteer for the Friday night shift. We waited seven weeks until conditions were right. On a rainy night in February we headed to Harborton Road which runs up a hill off the highway on the outskirts of Portland.

A red-legged frog in the spotlight.

That night I spent a couple of hours getting rained on and scanning the asphalt with a head lamp looking for frogs. Proper rain gear kept me reasonably dry as I spotted these amphibians out of the corner of my eye moving towards the highway. Others resembled stones when they sat motionless. This was usually the smaller Chorus frogs who got in on the free rides to the wetlands by having to cross the same road around the same times as the red-legged frogs.

Awaiting wetlands transfer.

Catching frogs wasn’t too hard. I figured out how to scoop them up and quickly became a kind of biologist short stop. It was a matter of getting in front of them, getting a hand under their heads and grabbing them as they hopped into my hands. Other frogs would freeze if they were blinded by the light which made them easy pickings. The tricky part was holding on to them while transferring them to the white transport buckets. They had a powerful kick and would get squirmy.

Busting out of the bucket into the wetlands.

Volunteers installed silt fencing running up the road along the guard rails to keep frogs from heading toward the highway. Frogs spilled into the base of Harborton road, a wider section at the bottom of the hill. There they had open access to Highway 30. Through rain splashed glasses a few frogs got close to having to contend with screaming automobiles barreling down 30, but they never got far enough where they couldn’t be rescued. One frog slipped by me and ended up well into the road. I resigned myself to sheer fate hoping nothing would happen until the road was clear enough and I could get to this imperiled frog. I faced an existential-zen conundrum of sorts, considering whether a frog’s life was more valuable than that of a human. I didn’t consider this for long realizing that an attempted frog rescue during oncoming traffic would have killed us both. Besides it’s not like frog volunteers are given training like the secret soldiers of Benghazi. I held my breath and waited for the coast to clear. The intensity ramped up when a pick up truck drove down Harborton Road and was about to turn into the lane where the now immobile frog sat. As soon as the truck turned traffic died down and I dashed into the road to get the frog who emerged from the misadventure unscathed.

Frog Release. (Photo by David Craig)

After egg laying and mating is finished in the wetlands, frogs need support getting back to their homes in the hills. Silt fencing helps corral them in that area too allowing volunteers to find and deliver them for release back into the hills. At the end of the night 48 red-legged frogs, along with hundreds of Chorus frogs, gained a new lease on life, avoiding vehicular calamity. Having no understanding of the behind the scenes efforts involving the many volunteers, the frogs seemed content to accept their bucket ride and be chauffeured across the highway to Marina Way and their wetlands drop off spot. We felt a sense of having made a difference in the lives of these frogs that night. Feeling a kinship in our rain-soaked sogginess, we headed home knowing we had done our part to rescue a few frogs who will in turn create more frogs that are bound to need saving in the future.

The outskirts.

For more information see http://www.linntonfrogs.org

All photos, except where noted by Ronna Craig.

Next Post: A Month Without Coffee

Here’s to a Happy Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2016February 14, 2016Leave a comment

Valentine 1

To keep up with our east coast Orbit rival, I find myself having to work holidays. Today it’s all love to everyone. Whether you’re spending an arm or a leg on a prix fixe meal at a fancy restaurant or cooking something amazing at home, I hope it’s the best Valentine’s Day meal you ever had and whether you’re gouging yourself with chocolate or hanging around the grocery store waiting for candy to be marked down 50%, well again it’s sounds like you’re experiencing Valentine’s Day at an optimal level. Enjoy!

Valentine 3

Seasons greetings and Happy Valentine’s Day from the Portland Orbit. Hope you make it a day of fun, love and calories.

Valentine 2

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