Sign Says…#3

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I’ve imagined this blog as a counter-culture anecdote to internet puppies and kittens but then my thoughts concerning local issues have begun boiling and I’ve ound myself with a forum where I can offer commentary.  Before writing with more depth I’ll send out some sign photos that have been back logging my blog topics file.

garden sign

Yes, I agree don’t eat from anyone’s garden, unless you have a dinner party invitation or permission. But how is any one to resist a sidewalk salad right there on the street?

gas sign

It’s easy to imagine a dog tied up on a gas meter getting excited, breaking a pipe and then someone dropping a cigarette causing a raging inferno that burns down half of St. Johns. I can see this happening quite easily so maybe the sign should have a frown on it for God’s sake.

Downcast Screening

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Downcast

I once had a film maker friend say to me, in a way that sounded part out of frustration and part out of reality, “It’s hard to make a film.” I don’t think I’ve heard a greater truth. While the same can be said about most art forms it’s more important to note that Christopher Jayawardena has completed his film Downcast. I saw trailers for the movie screened several times throughout the years at the monthly screening series Attack of the Flix. I remembered Downcast as an intense crime film with guns blazing. Seeing the latest trailer, none of what I remember has changed. I can well imagine the persistence and a half dozen other characteristics needed to make a movie on an independent level, but now it’s done.  The whole movie can be seen at 5th Avenue Cinema, 510 SW Hall St. Portland, OR 97201, on Sunday, October 19th at 3pm.

See the trailer that will inspire you to see this movie:

More info on 5th Avenue Cinema:

http://5thavenuecinema.org

Giant Heroes

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Bunyan CU

I like giant things like oversized milk cartons that rotate and gigantic roadside attractions. Was that the subconscious pull that caused me to move to the Kenton neighborhood with it’s towering Paul Bunyan Statue a block away? He’s the rival of tall tire guys and 30 foot Indian statues the world over. On a clear day, we can see the pom pom on his hat from our master bedroom.

The giant milk carton is a thing of beauty. As it spins, four different types of milk are revealed. You could spend an afternoon watching it whirl at the Sunshine Dairy plant in NE Portland around 20th St. Look for the building with the milk carton on it.

Giant Milk Carton

The milk carton plays a minor role in the following video.

Thanks to Josh G. for sending the link. http://youtu.be/SwK635FOfPw

The milk carton cameo is at 1:58.

Kenton residents might remember Paul Bunyan’s coffee cart.

Jeff Bunyan Eternal 003

Power to the Perry!

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Perry

After 48 years The Perry Mason Show is off the air in Portland, OR.  A mild controversy erupted two years ago, the first time Perry Mason was replaced from its noon slot on KPTV (Fox-12).  It returned to an 8am broadcast time on KPDX-TV channel 49, I’m assuming after enough of an uproar.  With little fanfare, Queen Latifah replaced Perry Mason in September. Any diehard Perry fan settling in to watch the show had to be disappointed. My wife, Ronna, and I started watching and enjoyed it. The characters all seemed to smoke like chimmneys and it was fun to see Perry Mason in black and white, along with investigator Paul Drake and the faithful secretary Della, chasing down some goofball in the 50’s and 60’s Los Angeles who thought he or she could get away with murder. We watched together when I had Monday mornings off. My wife’s work schedule allowed her to watch it every weekday morning.

The official story from Andy Delaporte, the vice president and general manager of KPTV/KPDX, is that the ratings were too low to keep airing the show. This is understandable but it occurred to me that the show was never promoted. A quick and funny promo could have easily been made to alert people to this gem of a show and could possibly have built an audience. And why does it always have to be about money? What about the public service of entertaining, what’s safe to assume, an elderly audience. I understand an hour of TV, five times a week, is too much to give away, but I cannot recall seeing any advertising during the show targeted to the audience. No Henry Winkler or Fred Thompson schilling for reverse mortgage programs, no medicare insurance, no Colonial Penn funeral insurance with or without Alex Trebek, no Teva (adult depends), no Consumer Cellular and no mysterious medication ads of any kind that I remember. I mostly recollect seeing commercials for career colleges and promos for Fox 12 news broadcasts. Anyone in the area who had been watching the show for 48 years was probably not considering career college.

My first thoughts were that I was going to have to fight the power to get Perry back on the air. I thought of boycotts, listing all the advertisers on the station and its affiliates, and then marching into a retirement community, up in arms, saying we can get Perry back. Working six days a week these days, I don’t want to spend my one day off protesting and I boycott most things anyway by being broke. I will get around to contacting Me-TV which is a subchannel of KATU-TV that may someday air Perry Mason in the Portland area. I found out through the Perry Mason page on Facebook that the show airs on Me-TV in Florida. Perry Mason also airs on the Hallmark Movie Channel but I’m not going back to cable.  Some of these other options involve investing in one of those DVR contraptions, something that me and all my geriatric compatriots may not be willing to do.

The biggest disappointment is losing another unique Portland experience.  If only I’d watched the show sooner, I could have seen all 275 episodes. Now I can only wish I was watching Perry Mason brainstorming in a haze of cigarette smoke, at 8am on a Monday morning, like the good old days.

Because they can say it better:

http://www.oregonlive.com/movies/index.ssf/2014/09/case_closed_after_48_years_per.html

Mural Mayhem: When Rabbits Attack

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My expose on the cancellation of Perry Mason is a bit more involved than I realized.

In the meantime I bring you this:

Mural Rabbit Attack

It appeared on a wall on Alberta Street that once had a white movie screen painted on it so the bar could use the patio area to screen movies. Subject matter aside, it’s colorful, dynamic, but still, somehow, deep down, disconcerting. The movie screen seemed like a cool idea that didn’t work out.

Summer’s Gone

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 Screen Shot 2014-09-25 at 4.38.46 PM

The last couple of weekends of the summer of 2014 in Portland, OR were hot and then it rained and it was easy to see where summer was over. If I could go back to any time this summer it would be to the one afternoon spent soaking up sun on my skin along the Clackamas River and from time to time jumping into the icy water. High Rocks, a short film I blogged about, has a sequel. Filmmaker Jason Blalock headed back to High Rocks ten years later to poke around and see what had changed. There’s a certain intrigue seeing that this movie also has a news reporter in it snooping for a story. She seems sharper and more cynical than the reporter in the previous film and it reminds me even more of the documentary versus TV news approach to story telling that Ross McElwee explored in his movie 6 O’clock News.

Next summer I’m visit another swimming hole, probably in late August to give the water a chance to warm up a couple of degrees. Watch High Rocks before you watch the sequel to find out what happened to Taz and if the High Rocks ever got safer and a little less crazy.

High Rocks II: http://vimeo.com/11151603

Info on Ross McElwee’s film 6 o’clock News: http://rossmcelwee.com/sixoclocknews.html

My High Rocks blog post: https://portlandorbit.wordpress.com/2014/09/05/high-rocks/

Read All About It

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TBA

It’s all over now but my favorite part of Time Based Art is the booklet they put out each year. I was dissappointed not to be able to pick it up at my local library, like I have in years past, but obsessed enough to ride my bike down to the TBA box office to pick up a copy. Each year I look through it to see photos of people doing strange things in the name of art. This year’s booklet includes shots of people wearing sheets, emoting in front of microphones and cellos and breaking out limb twisted dance moves. My imagination ruminates on the people and what they’re expressing. With an entertainment budget relegated to Netflix and Truckstop Cinema (more on that someday), I balk at 20 dollar show tickets.  While not too pricey, a vicarious experience of Time Based Art is just right for my budget and schedule.

Here’s a link to something that caught my eye in the booklet. Get to know your stand up comedians:

www.portlandstandupphotoalbum.tumblr.com

Portland Nice?!? I Can’t Take It!

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This blog post begins with a homework assignment. Read the following opinion piece before you read my reaction to it:

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/09/portland_nice_has_given_way_to.html

I started to react to this as soon as I read it. It occurred to me later that as a web blogger I have the freedom to write about anything I want including opinion pieces. I shy away from this but this commentary got on my nerves. It begins with a man who could not leave two bike riders alone. He had to butt in when it was unnecessary then thought his interaction was meaningful enough to merit submission to the Oregonian. This was really not worth including in the opinion section of the Sunday paper. I’m disappointed at what real issue could have been commented on in place of this commentary. It’s inflammatory from the headline to the jumbled mix of ideas in the piece and it starts more needless, ad nauseam complaints about people who ride bicycles.

IMG_2215

The man was rude, deciding to tell the bikers how they should ride when there was no traffic. Then he was surprised to receive a negative reaction which inspired more discourse on how Portland isn’t as good, nice, cool as it used to be. The only thing I appreciated was the mention of the hippies who told the writer, “don’t starve man,” which could almost be as catchy a catch phrase as you’re ever going to find and it makes me miss the concept of brotherhood that I heard Haskell Wexler talking about on Democracy Now last week. To end the article with hopes of misfortune regarding the weather, “I hope we have a good old fashioned, Portland, Oregon, underwear-wetting winter” comes across as a Warlock curse that’s a bit too Travis Bickle. Let me get back to blogging about murals and homemade signs.

Additional Notes: The headline that appeared in the paper was: ‘Portland nice’ has given way to rude (expletive) cyclists. “Portland Nice” is an admirable ideal.  Agitation doesn’t have to be met with more agitation.  

Complaints about McMansions, only make me want to refer you to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAXLlVnL72Q

Sign says…#2

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It’s nice to consider a dentist with a sense of humor. Sometimes dentists only seem funny when nitrous oxide is involved. And pain associated with the television show “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” is the operative word. When you watch it you wonder what you’re watching and how it could possibly be on TV. Then you have to consider why you can’t stop watching it. It’s like channel surfing in a cable television tsunami.

dental marquee

This sign is outside a new dental office on North Lombard Street.  With multiple dental offices up and down Lombard, I consider North Portland, with great pride, to be the dental capital of the whole city.