Quick Links to Portland Blog Posts

 Portland Recreation, Where I meet a man in a park and we eat breakfast in the rain.

 Portland and the True Believer: I meet a man in a barcade and he shows me the light.

 Portland and the Luckiest Man: I go traipsing through the woods to find hidden treasure.

 Portland from Two Wheels: I meet another cyclist at Portland's HUB

Portland and The Hippo: Where I explore a hardware store with a man who should have been my grandpa.

 Portland and The Slam: I go to the city finals for the Portland Poetry Slam. A favorite.

 Portland and the Garden: The Portland Japanese Garden has never looked more lovely. And I almost lose my mind.

 Portland and Real Food: The Farmer's Market and all its sunny day glory.

 Portland and The Science Pub: Bringing beer and science together, as nature intended.

Portland and the Good Samaritan: A humbling experience that is delivered via the Hospital and Craiglist.

Portland and One Higher: The most popular post on the blog to date. Words can't describe, just read it.

Portland and Men of Specifics: A new take on an old theme and the beauty of the rental.

Portland and the Virtual Girl: A great email response to my ad. Priceless.

Portland and a World that is just Small Enough: An inspiring story of a boys home just outside of Portland.

Portland and Early Morning Opportunities: A ride in a cab in the wee wee hours. Funny because it's true.

 Portland and the Flower Garden: A walk through a flower garden with a mechanic.

Portland and Unexpected Music: A night of great music and sad commentary.

Portland and the Coffee Man: A talk in a Thai place with a pioneer of green coffee

Portland and the Beautiful Dance: A visit to a dance studio that inspires and titillates.

Portland and The Green Girl: A walk through the woods with a sustainable land development guru.

Portland and The Happy Marriage: A classic Portland place with a classy Portland couple, Boris and Natasha.

Portland and The Bookseller: A talk with Michael Powell about his amazing bookstore.

Portland and The Exotic: A visit to the Chinese Garden in the center of the city

Portland and the Search: Where I found my voice and my confidence

Number One: Portland Recreation

For my first meeting with a Portland person, I made an arrangement with Robert, an older gentleman, (older than me, maybe not you), who initially needed a bit of cajoling towards picking a Portland spot.  There are, after all, many great ones.  After a few email exchanges he picked the Laurelhurst area, and planned that we go to Laurelhurst Park, Pine State Biscuits on Belmont, and then, on to Alma Chocolates on NE 28th.  Robert had described himself as having "clown hair", though it was white, 6 feet tall and glasses.  For some reason, I always picture clown hair as bright orangey-red, but I guess it really depends on what type of circus we are talking about. When I asked him in my email if he would be wearing something distinctive, his reply came, "distinctive in Portland?  You mean, like a suit?"  Yes, indeed, I knew Robert and I would get along just fine.

I was sitting on a concrete wall, waiting for Robert in the drizzly, misty, spring-time Portland weather right outside of Laurelhurst park, when I hear, "blue jacket, you must be Amy!"  Which was an incredible coincidence, because my name has always been Sara, but, for some reason, at least once every few years, someone either mistakes me for someone named Amy, or, calls me Amy because I remind them of an Amy.  In fact, my father wanted to name me Amy, but, thank the heavens, this did not come to pass.  I am really not a big fan of the name Amy.  Don't get me wrong, I have friends named Amy, lovely women, all, but really, if you knew me, you would know- not at all an Amy.  Most Amies, (plural proper names, they're tough), are much nicer than I am.

So, I corrected him, to which he replied that he had just been speaking with someone named Amy, thus the mix-up.  The thing about Robert was that he reminded me of someone, and though I could not put my finger on who, I knew it was someone who I did not like very much.  Go figure.

We started walking around the park, and he pointed out the lovely, and in some cases, incredibly large trees, some of which were flowering and casting a lovely aroma, the great dogs, the people, the wonderful-ness of one of the oldest parks in Portland.  He talked about the architecture in Portland, the beauty of the architecture surrounding the park, and the nature of the people who you could find in a park such as this.  It wasn't long, however, until we both started to partake in what I believe is one of the favorite past times of the many liberals of Portland.  Complaining.  We, of the bicycle-riding, organic-food-eating, extremely-left-leaning variety, we, of the micro-brew-drinking, off-the-beaten-path-walking, rainbow-flag-waving Portland liberals.  We, I can tell you, are some of the worst hypocrites you will ever come across.  I know.  I have met many, and none have been as ardently judgmental and righteously indignant of others who also consider themselves "liberal".

He launched into the reality of Portland growth, how cool certain areas used to be, and how corporations have come in and transformed these areas into decidedly un-cool.  His first example: Northwest 23rd.  It used to be full of little shops, independent coffee houses, even a couple of second-hand stores.  Then, the corporations moved in, (Starbucks, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Kitchen Kaboodle), and turned what used to be a charming little area into a soulless, white-washed overly gentrified wasteland.  Only a few of the cool little shops remained.  This led to our conversation about how quickly great little places come and go in Portland, and how you really have to get in to a place early and often before they are forced to close their doors forever.  One such place, Margaret & Oliver's, a charming little vintage clothing store on Hawthorne, still carries quite a sting for me.  Then, onto SUVs and the waste of them, the people who consider themselves "outdoorsy" who must purchase the latest, brightest outdoor gear every season, the reality of the corporate-controlled political system, I mean, really, it went on and on.  Then, we headed toward Pine State Biscuits.

Pine State Biscuits is this very little place on Belmont, (there is one on Alberta, too), which I had never been to before.  Within a block of this place, I could smell the aroma of eggs and cheese and biscuits and gravy and pork and other heavenly things.  The more deeply I inhaled, the more difficult it was to believe that I had never been.  We stood for a few minutes outside of the door in order to wait for some people to leave, and when they did, we walked in.  It was set up as more of a take-out place, the kitchen being larger in size than the dining area, which was quite small and densely packed.  Robert pointed out the menu and told me he preferred the right side of it.  All of the biscuit-y meals were on the left side, but I figured, do as the tour-guides do, so I ordered from the left.  Hash browns with all kinds of stuff in it, including pork products, which I love above all else, and greens.  The incredibly friendly young man behind the register let me know I had ordered well; it was what he ate almost every day.  Robert ordered fried green tomatoes and greens, and we took our meal to Laurelhurst Park to find a bench and eat.

It was still drizzly when we arrived, but, no matter, we are Portlanders after all; we sat down on the damp picnic bench, took out our biodegradable-compostable-earth-friendly take-out boxes which held our perfectly cooked local foods in them, and began eating, in the rain.  Ah, Portland, how I love thee.  We ate in relative peace, mostly because I have the tendency to inhale my food, whether eating in the rain or not.  Robert was not an inhaler.  If it is possible, the food actually tasted better than it smelled.  One of the things that I had picked up on when I was talking to Robert is that he needed someone to talk to.  I surmised this in the way that he kept interrupting me many of the times that I had started speaking.  Most of the time he apologized.  I have to admit, this used to bother me, but I did not really have an issue with it with Robert.  As we sat at the table, he told me about his history, where he had worked, where he had lived on the west coast, and finally, where he is now, which is living with a woman who is in her 90s and taking care of her 24-7.  He rarely gets days off, and when he does, he inevitable feels like he wastes them.  I started to feel a bit guilty about my time with him, and hoped that it was worthy of a piece of his time away.  Robert, I believe, really needed someone to listen.  If I had judged him for it, it would have made me more of a hypocrite than I could stand to be.

When you are talking to someone and you come to understand something about them on a basic level which reminds you of your own frailty it is quite humbling.  It is not that Robert comes off as frail, it is that, like many of us, he wants connection with people, and the life he lives does not allow for much of that.  He talked about how great Portland was, but as he said, how great is it when you don't have someone to share it with?  It is scary to reach out to someone; we are admitting to loneliness and vulnerability and the necessity for another in our lives.  Admitting it to ourselves is one thing, admitting it to the world is quite different.  We got up to start heading off to Alma Chocolate, and as we passed a garbage can, he threw our bag of compostables in, saying, "I just hope that it goes into the right type of landfill", without a hint of irony.  I have to admit, I had no idea what he was talking about, but just how many layers of information do you need when throwing away your trash?

We walked in the drizzle toward Alma, out of the park and through Northeast Portland.  The neighborhood that Alma Chocolate is set in is a recent up-and-comer, complete with a brew-and-view, independent eateries, and of course, a Whole Foods and a Starbucks.   As we walked by the Starbucks on the way there, we railed on the evil that is the Starbucks Empire, and lamented the fact that so many were transfixed by its marketing spin.

As we walked into Alma, the aroma of rich, dark chocolate in our nostrils greeted us, as did the incredibly friendly sales girl behind the counter.  It is a great day in Portland when you go to two different eateries and get not just good, but great service in both.  It is a rarity and an occasion to celebrate in this town.  We tried the ginger toffee, which was wonderful, and then I picked out several truffles, a couple for me, and a couple for my bff, who is also a choco-file.  I actually don't know if I like that term, and, in fact, the terms choco-holic, choco-file, and choco-leptic all denote somewhat negative, out-of-control tendencies, which I do not find appropriate, but until I come up with something better, this is what I will have to settle for.  Such is life.  Robert picked out a bag of the ginger toffee, saying, "Patricia loves this stuff".  I inquired as to who Patricia was, and he replied that she was the woman he cares for.  His response humbled me.  I believe deeply that everyone whom you come into contact with is either a mirror or a teacher, and in this particular interaction, I was very much the student.

We walked back to the park, complaining more about politics, our disappointment in the current administration, and the horrible trend Reagan started with his anti-government campaign.  We arrived back at the park a bit moist, but invigorated, and parted ways with a hand shake and a smile.  It was then I remembered who Robert had reminded me of, and decided that I would replace the memory with the one I had just created with Robert, thinking to myself that this 25 people thing was going to be a remarkable experience.

Number Two: Portland and the True Believer

Adam, a man of 29 from Minnesota, emailed me soon after I had posted my first advertisement for Portland People, writing fervently about a BarCade he frequents regularly.  I have met an inordinate amount of people who have moved to Portland from Minnesota in the last few years, and I have begun to wonder, do Minnesotans get some type of tax break for moving here?  Is there some refugee situation I am not aware of, or, have they all finally given up on the Vikings and decided to move to a place where the NFL does not hold sway?  As of yet, I have found no reasonable answer, so I am happy to keep myself entertained by asking these people, when I meet them, how that "Brett Favre thing" worked out for them.  It is enough for now.

For those of you who are unaware, a BarCade is an arcade where they serve beer; a simple yet brilliant concept which attracts Adam and those like him to spend hours and quarters losing themselves in the flashing lights and beckoning challenge to make it to the next level.  I had been to this place before, but never with a person with a passion for pinball.  In his initial email to me, Adam boldly stated:

“Though the old school arcades have all but vanished, one place in Portland still holds the line. I go to church once a week, not in the biblical sense, but equally religious. Ground Kontrol... the alcohol-serving old school arcade offers me peace and solace in this world. Regarded as a "BarCade," Ground Kontrol provides all that a Portland man needs. Nearly 20 pinball tables become my scripture, while PBR and Frogger my communion. Some may applaud Portland for its hipster image, the food, the music. I applaud it for its life: The sights, sounds, and smell of the barcade.”

Pretty astounding, I thought, that one could get so much from beer and pinball, but, his passion was palpable in his email, enough to where I knew I would miss out on something if I did not go with him to this place he lovingly referred to as “Church”.

I arrived at 8, as we had discussed in our premails, (previous emails used to set up the event), and locked my bike to the blue rack out front.  As I walked in the door, a young man who appeared to my 41 year-old eyes to be no more than 15, carded me, addressing me as “sweetheart” in the most syrupy-sweet voice, that I almost slapped him.  It is distressing to me that I am offended by such things, but, sadly, I am, and this reaction confirms my suspicion that I have indeed become an old woman.  I looked around but did not see Adam; he said he would be wearing an old school brown Adidas track jacket and green Chuck Taylors.  To my amusement, there were quite a few other gentlemen, old and young, in track jackets of different colors, but, alas, I did not find Adam’s unique color combination in the gathering crowd, so I bellied up to the bar and ordered a bottle of Heineken; I was twelve when I drank my first beer, a Heineken, when pinball was entering its heyday, so I thought it suitable.

As I surveyed the scene, I got a text from Adam apologizing, saying that he had gone to the wrong address, and that he would be a bit late.  I had four quarters in my pocket and a cold Heineken in my hand, everything I needed, I figured, to entertain myself until he got there.  I looked around at the many video games on the first floor; Pac Man, Joust, Q-bert, Gauntlet, and the like, and then glanced upstairs, where all the pinball machines were kept.  I decided that since pinball is a bit more old-school, I would head up.  I climbed the blue neon-lit staircase and looked around, trying to find a good one to play; Star Wars Episode One was out of the question on principal.  Playing this machine would justify its existence, which I simply could not do.  There was a Simpsons pinball machine, a Sopranos, South Park, Terminator: Judgment Day, even a Demolition Man machine, which was being used to prop a door open with a chain.  I chuckled, remembering the line from that film, “Send a maniac (Sylvester Stallone), to catch a maniac, (Wesley Snipes)”, I guess, this time, the maniac was sent to prop a door open.  

Then I saw it.  As I cast my eyes upon the ruggedly handsome face of Indiana Jones and that magical whip of his, I knew I was home.  I put in the requisite two quarters to start the machine, then, grasped the pistol used to shoot the ball onto the table, and, slowly, happily, squeezed the trigger.  The theme was an ode to the first three movies; Short Round, Marion, even Indy’s dad were all there, inviting me to explore the wonders that would inevitably occur when I hit the ball into the right bumper, hole or ramp thingy.  There was even what I am assuming was a replica of the golden idol Indy swiped from the booby-trapped cave in one of the best opening scenes in any movie, EVER.   The idol would spin and spit out balls at seemingly random times.  In retrospect, I am sure the ball spitting was not at all random, but the excitement of the flashing lights, the shiny metal balls and the ringing bells distracted me from what was going on while I was playing.  Of course, I sucked, but somehow lucked into the machine giving me way more balls than a normal turn would call for.  By the time I had used them up, a bit of sweat had formed on my brow, and there were actually a couple of guys waiting to play.  Ah, the call of Indy’s World of Adventures, I don’t know a person alive who could resist.  As I stepped away from Indiana and his bedroom eyes, I saw Adam, wearing, as promised, his brown Adidas track jacket and green Converse.  A thin, dark haired young man with a beer in his hand and excitement in his eyes, I could tell he was looking forward to sharing this place with me.  It was then that the real adventure began.

It was starting to get a bit crowded, so he and I walked around the second floor as he explained to me what made a good machine, (a variety of holes, ramp thingies and extra ball opportunities), what the major pinball machine companies were, (Williams, Gottleib, and of course, Bally), and which were his favorite.  He lamented the fact that he had not been born at another time, either, he said, in the 1300s, or, thirty years earlier than he had been, so that he could have been around for the height of the pinball frenzy.  Then, with a look of horror, quickly followed by deep sorrow, he noted that his favorite machine in the whole world, Tales of the Arabian Nights, was not working.  For the rest of the time we were playing various other pinball machines, I would occasionally catch him glancing back at it, wistfully, as if hoping by some miracle, it had been fixed. 

Adam told me, while playing Bride of Pinbot, that this is where he could relax; that he found solace in the flashing lights, the ringing bells, the knock of the flippers against the ball and the ball against the bumpers. I could tell that talking to me was throwing his game off, but he didn't seem to mind, as if winning was not the point for this Pope of the Pinball Parlor.  As I watched him play, I wondered at how incredible it was that he could find peace in such a distracting place.  He then became philosophical and informed me that pinball machines were like women.  I honestly kind of had a feeling this was true, being a woman, standing there among these vibrant pinball machines, full of depth and complexity, I did indeed feel a certain kinship, an unnameable knowing, if you will, but decided to ask him why he thought this was so.  He told me, as he watched the ball bounce off the flippers, that much like women, pinball machines advertise themselves as one thing, but you really need to spend some “face time” with them in order to really get to know how they work.  What a strange coincidence that in this way, they also happen to be like men.  Something for everyone at Ground Kontrol, I guess.

We decided to go downstairs and try our hand at some of the video games.  I noticed immediately that it was much quieter on the first floor, though, not really quiet at all, actually just a little less violently noisy.  The floor was also more suitably sticky, much like the arcades I used to play in as a child.  As I said before, I am old, and the sights, sounds and smells of this place were really bringing it all back for me.  We wandered around until we found Frogger, Adam’s favorite video game, which, distressingly, was also not working.  Oh the humanity.  We played a few rounds of Burgertime together, at which he beat me, two out of three times.  We then wandered into a section where the old timers were: Defender, Asteroids, Tempest, and Galaga.   As my pulse quickened with excitement, he turned away, waving his hand, saying something about never having played “those games”, as if they were in some way dirty.  I asked, incredulously, how it was that he had NEVER PLAYED TEMPEST before, and, sensing the obvious challenge, he turned back, gleam in his eye, and invited me to play.  As I played, I excitedly pointed out why Tempest is such a wonder: the knob, not joy stick, not roller ball, the knob you turn in order to move your ship into position to shoot enemies in a tube-like environment which actually uses the illusion of space to add to the challenge.  I remembered vaguely that this was one of the first games to do that, and the hours I had spent in front of the screen with my twin brother, trying to avoid the spikes as I warped from one tube galaxy to the next. 

In that moment, with the taste of Heineken on my tongue, and the sweet memories of yesterday in my heart, I became one of the converted, and, with Adam, I marveled at the simple beauty that is Tempest.  As I watched Adam play, my mind drifted back to a simpler time, a time when I didn’t have the worries, fears and frustrations I now hold, a time when all there was, was kill or be killed.   Though Adam and I held this BarCade experience in high regard for two completely different reasons, I for nostalgic reasons, and him for communion, I now understood how the absolute focus and devotion to this endeavor could produce a Zen-like state, and began to see Adam in a completely different light, not as one to be tormented with jokes of Favre-ian atrocities, but one to be cheered, as he managed to strategically maneuver his way to third all-time high scorer on Tempest at my new favorite Portland Place, Ground Kontrol.

Number Three: Portland and the Luckiest Man

In addition to being from Minnesota, (!), Kurt was similar to several other men I have known in the Portland area in that he doesn't have to work.  Some of these men have jobs which allow them to take several months off at a time, some have sold businesses which have allowed them to live on the proceeds indefinitely, some have had jobs which paid them enough over time so that they could retire quite early.  Kurt is a bit different.  Due to an illness, he is getting paid to be an electrical engineer while he takes two and a half years off to recuperate.  From what he says, he gets paid rather well.  I am not sure what exactly this illness is, but as he very recently returned from hiking around Mexico for several weeks, and took me on a hike through Forest Park for this project, I am not too sure how ill he actually is right now.  In fact, he seemed pretty healthy, taking into account the norm for a roughly 40 year old American male.  Did I mention he is from Minnesota?

I met Kurt at the lower MacLeay trail head, which is roughly six or seven blocks from my doorstep.  Kurt rode his bike there, and I could tell when we first said hello that A) he had read my blog because he called me Amy, and B) he thought I was under-dressed, as he kind of looked me up and down and his eyes lingered a bit too long on my foot gear.  This is not where men's eyes usually linger.  He had on boots and hiking pants, and definitely looked like a "Northwest Guy".  This is the thing, for me, about Forest Park.  It is amazing, it is gorgeous, but, I don't find the trails I hike there to be boot-worthy.  I mean, it is pretty manicured, and I don't really feel like I need the extra weight on my feet for a walk through the park.  Of course, I had never been Geocaching, much less ever heard of it, so, as I would learn later, my choice of footwear was indeed ill-advised.  Shows how much I know.

When I first read about Geocaching in the link and video Kurt sent me in his initial email, I was blown away that I had never heard of such a thing, as it sounded like an activity I could have invented myself.  Way back when I was in art school and just after, I occupied myself setting up installations where people could go and get things for free, maybe trade them in for something else, or, even, choose to smash said thing, which was usually made of clay.   I was incredibly interested in the relationship people have with objects; in these installations, they could assign their own value to the total experience outside of the societal currency-based context which is usually used as a means of measurement.  I am almost positive that when I went to the Geocache website and read about this activity, my jaw dropped open.  Going hiking and looking for little boxes full of stuff other people have left?!?!?!  Taking a little something and leaving a little something in RETURN?!?!?!?  I don't think I am overstating this to say that the existence of such a practice makes our world a MUCH BETTER PLACE to live in.  In fact, there are 1,332,525 active Geocaches around the WORLD.  Not just in wilderness areas; in urban areas as well.  It is a world-wide treasure hunt which surrounds us and binds us together, much like The Force, but on a much smaller scale.

Kurt brought maps, the clues to the caches, a compass, and a GPS system, which looked exactly like a walkie-talkie.  I brought a small collection of trinkets to leave in the caches in exchange for something cool I might find there.  The rule is that you leave something as cool or cooler than what you take.  As we started walking down Lower MacLeay, we barely spoke.  I did not ask too many questions, as I did not want him to think I was prying, and he was also a bit quiet.  He had read my dating blog and I am guessing he already knew more about me than he was probably comfortable with.  Additionally, it is still sometimes awkward for me to initiate conversation with people I don't know, especially when I think that they are judging me for my footwear.

I decided that in order to maybe break the ice, I would ask him why he thought so many people from Minnesota move here.  Not surprisingly, he said he had given it some thought, as he too had had the opportunity to meet many Minnesotans since he moved here.  He believed that much like Minnesota, Portland is predominantly white, progressive in the same kind of lip-service-y way, and, unlike Minnesota, has a pretty mild climate and tons of outdoors-y things to do, all year round.  So, while seemingly never ending rain is kind of a turn off for folks in the warmer places in the country, to Midwesterners, who must deal with bone chilling cold in the winter and skin melting heat and humidity in the summer, Portland rain seems like a pretty good deal.  Being from Chicago, I could see his point.

It was a typical spring day in Portland; the weather entities had predicted sun, so it was incredibly overcast with a bit of a misty rain falling on our heads.  As we walked up the trail, Kurt said that the first cache was coming up.  He had familiarized me with his maps and even let me hold the GPS.  It is a refreshing experience when a man actually lets you play with the cool toys and maps he has brought to navigate the terrain. We neared a cache named Karma #2 and followed the clues that went with the map, but, alas, try as we might, we could not find it, and moved on.  We then neared the next cache, entitled Say What, Stone What and also had no luck finding this cache, and again, pushed on.  It was at this point that Kurt asked me if I knew how to read contour lines.  As I thought back to my days dating a man who took hiking VERY SERIOUSLY, I recounted reading the contour lines on maps and figuring out how steep or even the trail would be.  Of course, I initially told him the exact opposite of how to read contour lines, but quickly corrected myself after thinking about it for a second.  He replied that he was just impressed that I knew what they were, as most "chicks" didn't even know.  I wish I could feign offense at this designation, but, sadly, I have my own special terminology for men, and, some of them are less than complimentary.

As we hiked up the trail, Kurt handed me the sheet of paper with clues on it.  The next cache was titled Like a Rainbow in the Dark.  Yes, it was indeed a cache tribute to Ronnie James Dio, and as such, I committed myself to finding it, and find it I did.  It was a black metal box with a picture of a rainbow glued to the top, and on the inside of the top of the box was a picture of Dio in all their glory.  I knew at that moment that this would be a day of victory as the spirit of Ronnie James Dio would be our guide for the remainder of the journey.  In this box, as in each cache, was a booklet to write down the name, item taken and item left by each person and many little trinkets to choose from.  In this particular box, I felt it conceptually and aesthetically fitting to leave a black ring with a skull and cross bones on it that I had just happened to bring with me.  There was also a disposable camera, which Kurt used to take a picture of me, directing me to "give your best metal horns look" as he took the picture.  The magic of Dio was not only guiding us, but also helping us loosen up a bit with each other.  Oh, Ronnie James Dio, how your dark wonders are missed.  I normally take time to explain certain references I make throughout my blogs for my reader(s).  In this particular case, I do not believe you worthy of explanation if you do not know of Dio or Ronnie James Dio.  In this particular case, you are on your own.

We walked up the trail quite a ways, coming close to, but not finding, two other caches.  It was interesting to see that on the GPS screen, we were basically standing on top of the caches, but, sadly, there was nothing under our feet.  There was one in particular we looked for for quite a while, which was supposed to be taped to a tree limb in a small camouflaged container.  At one point, standing in front of said tree, I made the observation that it should be somewhat easy for us to see.  Kurt laughed, compared me to his seven year old child, and told me that this was not a walk in the park, but a hunt, and therefore, I should be prepared to get dirty in order to find the cache.  That if they made it easy, it wouldn't be as cool.  There is nothing like being compared to a young child to really put a fire under you.  He was right of course; I was, in part, coasting on the victory that was the Rainbow in the Dark cache, and partly, just kinda taking it easy.  I decided then and there it was game on.

We hiked up to the Audubon society, and began hiking the Collins Trail Loop.  We had begun talking about his free time, and all the stuff he can do because he doesn't have to work, and at one point, he said, referring to our hike and Geo caching, "I am getting paid to do this".  I told him that in addition to all the things he does, he should probably create a line of shirts, coffee mugs, beer cozies, and clocks, all with the phrase on them, "I get paid to do this."  There is nothing, in my opinion, that is better in this world than getting paid to live your life.  I have been thinking more and more about this ever since I started coming into contact with various men of leisure, and have become convinced that the way that we, that I, operate, working every day for a paycheck in order to do cool stuff when I am not at work, is incredibly illogical.  It just makes more sense to get paid for being who you are, just like Tom Jones.

The Collins Trail Loop proved to be incredibly muddy and challenging to hike without getting my running shoes completely soaked and caked with slime, so at a certain point, I gave up and just started unceremoniously hiking through the mud.  We attempted, unsuccessfully, to find another cache where we had to hike around the "9 pillared fortress" and down a hillside to find a "voodoo doll".  The "9 pillared fortress" was this amazing tree with 9 trunks.  It was beautiful, but I really should have known better than to look for this one, as it was named after a pirate, and I abhor the pirate movement in Portland, such as the Portland Pirate Festival, and the myriad other ridiculous pirate events that occur here.  I should have just sailed on, as it were, but instead spent 15 or 20 minutes crawling up and down the hillside looking for a damn voodoo doll.  Argh, Pirates.

On we walked.  I was a bit concerned that Kurt might be worried that we had only found one cache so far, but, really, the one we found had been such an utter victory that it would have been fine if we had not found another  all day.  We were also walking on a trail I had never hiked before, and that in itself was really pretty great.  At one point Kurt wondered aloud where all the birds were, which I thought was a strange thing, until I remembered that the Audubon Society was a bird-lovers thing.  Sometimes my stupidity is incredibly amusing, even to me.  The next cache was called Lt. Dan's Legs, which we found in a stump.  Awesome.  Not only did this cleverly named cache refer to a character in one of my favorite movies, it did so in a decidedly un-PC and therefore, un-Portland manner.  There is nothing like inappropriate amputee humor to liven up any activity.

The next one we found under a bridge on the trail, the clue being "a 1992 Red Hot Chili Peppers Hit song".  Fitting, as this song marked the period where the Chili Peppers began to make "hits" rather than "music", and, not coincidentally, converged with the long, slow and excruciating descent into blandness by Metallica, a band I used to treasure as I did the air I breathed.  This cache, like almost every other container besides the DIO cache had been covered in a camouflage design, and as I reached under the bridge to get it, I got two incredibly painful thorn-type things in my hand; one for each band that broke my heart that decade.  Damn you, Red Hot Chili Peppers.  I do not remember the name of the plant these thorns belonged to, but I can tell you, for the rest of that day, my hand was red and throbbing.

After this, we found another cache, and were feeling pretty confident.  I had gotten better at reading the GPS thingy, Kurt had taught me how to use the compass and the map, and in general, things were going quite well.  On our way back down the trail, Kurt suggested that since I was used to looking for caches in the nooks and crannies of the forest, that we might have better luck with the ones we missed on a second pass.  He was right.  With steady poise, we began to find each cache that we had missed before, and then, miraculously, the sun came out.  If you have never lived in Portland, you might not understand the profound experience of sunshine in the spring.  Generally speaking, it rains in Portland from Mid October to the beginning of July, give or take a few weeks.  There might be a day or two of sun sprinkled in there, but for the most part, it is cloudy and raining for most of the year.  Because of the rain, an amazing array of flowering bushes and trees prosper here, making the spring a magical time when the homogeneous grey is pierced by vivid sparks of color, varying from bright pink to yellow to deep purple.  Coincidentally, Deep Purple is the name of a band that never broke my heart, but that is somewhat if not entirely beside the point.  When the sun comes out in the spring, illuminating the vibrant colors and reflecting off of the moisture settled on the green, the effect is dazzling to the point of near confusion.  It is, I believe, the springtime when most tourists decide to move to Portland.  20 years ago, I visited in April.  I find myself here still, always, always waiting on the spring.

In the end, our final cache, "Karma 2", the first one we could not find, was our most victorious, because this is where we found a "Geocoin"; a coin that you track through the Geo cache website.  The coin we found had originated in Ontario, Canada, then went to Quebec, Alberta, B.C., Washington, Oregon, Illinois, and then back to Oregon.  I had to actually talk Kurt into taking it.  He initially believed himself to be unworthy of such a find, and was concerned that he would have to go somewhere very cool to leave it, to which I argued, "With great power comes great responsibility", one of my favorite lines from Spider-man.  This argument was pretty much the glue that cemented our friendship, and in the end, was what convinced him to take the coin.

The reality is, he had done a great thing that day.  He introduced me to an activity which inspired hope and optimism for the human race which I believed to be all but lost, and, had stumbled upon his next professional endeavor: creating clothing, gift items, and eventually, probably, sports drinks, all branded with the slogan, "I get paid to do this".

Number Four: Portland from Two Wheels

I am just going to say this to get it out of the way: John, the man I was to meet at HUB one dramatically beautiful spring evening, is from Minnesota.  MINNESOTA.  Do you believe me now?  There is something incredibly strange going on here, and I guess I am going to have to be the dumb ass to say it: if "Minnesota" turns out to be some type of code word that aliens are using to let each other know that the assimilation is underway, please do not say that you were not warned.  In fact, I am beginning to wonder if I am not in some way a pawn being used in a grand diabolical scheme to fill the city of Portland with creatures from another universe.  It could happen.  Stranger things have in this town.  Anyone who has ever lived here knows that.

Initially, John was a bit worried that his love of biking is "trite" by Portland standards.  As a bike commuter myself and a person who appreciates the freedom life on a bike can provide, I begged him to reconsider meeting me, especially after he sent me this email:

"It's all about the bike, and that's something that would be echoed by thousands of Portlanders, I'm sure.  I'm truly ecstatic that I live in a city that has so many people that share the same enthusiasm.  You're a bike commuter so you already get that.  But it's so much more than just a means of conveyance. It's therapy for me in the most literal sense of the word. There's nothing better to relieve a shitty day at work (of which there are many), than a long, hard ride in the West Hills. A little slice of heaven in the middle of the city. And along the way, I share this common bond with so many people. I'm not a particularly social animal, but put me on a bike and it all changes.  All of a sudden, that doctor grinding up the hill ahead of me is my equal.

I'm riding along Fairmont Blvd, near Council Crest, on a sunny Monday afternoon and my rear tire picks up a roofing staple. No problem, I'm prepared for that. I throw another tube in, not realizing that it's not fully seated and use my only CO2 cartridge to blast a huge whole in it. It's going to be a long, frustratingly hot walk home. Within a few minutes,  a pack of very fit looking guys on incredibly spendy bikes zip by in the other direction. One calls out to see if I'm okay. I shake my head. He drops back from the group to see what's up. We get to talking and I find out that he's with a bunch of lawyers that go out and do this ride once a week at lunch time. He's got everything needed to get me rolling, I express my gratitude and tell him that I'm bit surprised that he even bothered to stop. He told me that he'll always stop for a stranded cyclist, even if it does drive his wife crazy. Then he invites me to join the remainder of the ride as long as we can catch the pack.  I doubt that I'd get so much as nod of acknowledgment from these guys under any other circumstance, but at this particular point in time, I belong.  Maybe this type of behavior is universal, but I can't say I've had this type of experience in any of the other places I've lived."

There is nothing like a story about bikes and the shared love of biking bringing people together.  Of course, I am a biker, and this is why I share this love, but really, and this is the more important issue which I have underlined in previous posts: things, events, activities, anything that brings people together, this is what makes it all worth while.  This is why I believe, down to the incredibly smooth and surprisingly lovely skin on the bottoms of my feet, that while we are all afraid of the things that make us different, the things that tie us together are much more important, and in the end, more valuable.

I agreed to meet John at HUB, or, Hopworks Urban Brewery, on SE Powell Boulevard early Thursday evening, after a very busy day at Forest Park.  HUB is a well-known and loved organic brewery, which is also, in the grand Portland tradition, completely sustainable.  The bar itself is a beautiful long stretch of reused materials: old framing, ceiling joists, and office paneling, the foot rail is made from old boiler pipe, and old bike frames hang overhead in tribute to the many cyclists that populate the city's streets daily.  It is not only a beauty to behold, it is also conceptually and philosophically stirring to any biker's soul.

As I had mentioned, it was a dramatically beautiful evening, which, if you do not live in Portland, probably needs a bit of explanation.  Portland in the spring is breathtaking, it is a season of hope, but, it is also a season which reminds everyone who lives here to always wear or carry rain gear.  As I left my quaint apartment in Northwest Portland I kept an eye on the sky; across the breadth of it was a variety of weather.  Sun was peaking out from behind some grey and white clouds far to the southwest, illuminating the small buildings and trees on the east side of the river.  To the east loomed ominously dark clouds which warned of the possibility of showers, maybe even hail, and in between those extremes floated perfectly lovely pinkish grey clouds.  The air was incredibly crisp, and the white flowering trees along the waterfront on the west side of the river created a delicate awning for the homeless people sitting on the benches beneath them.  As I neared the Hawthorne bridge behind two other bikers, it started sprinkling, but by the time I reached the east side esplanade just north of OMSI, it let up.  As I turned my bike east, toward HUB, I elected to go up Clinton instead of Division, as so many have pointed out to me, is a much safer route.

As I rode my bike up Clinton, I saw a friend and shouted his name, but kept going.  One very well known fact of Portland life is that you really can't go anywhere without at one point or other running into someone you know.  This was my person, and, very unlike many Portlanders, I did not stop to give him a "Portland Hug", due to the fact that I was running a bit late and that my personal space bubble issues would keep me from doing so anyway.  I do realize, by the way, that a couple of paragraphs up, I was espousing the virtues of connection and togetherness.  For the record, my personal space bubble has never kept me from connecting with people, just from hugging them.  A completely different matter.

The thing that is a bit frustrating about HUB is that it is on one of the most UN-friendliest bike streets in Portland.  As I neared Powell, I saw that the rush hour traffic was in full swing, and I figured that as long as I could get to the left hand turn lane in the middle of the street, I would be able to make it to the other side without causing too much distress to the drivers speeding by.  Of course, I made it to that lane, and then, all of the cars driving east on Powell stopped in order to let me cross.  This is a phenomenon which has always baffled me.  Why is it that Portland drivers are always stopping for people crossing in the middle of the street, and almost never for those who use the crosswalks?  Uncanny.

John happened to arrive at the same time, we introduced ourselves, and inevitably, commented on the weather and its effect on our choice of bike clothes.  We walked through the packed bar to the restaurant and found that there was a half-hour wait for a table.  We elected to grab two beers, order dinner to go, and sit outside in the beer garden and talk.  John works for ODOT, and from what I understand, works on the cameras all around the city, which, he emphasized to me, are not for recording events, or spying on free citizens, but for use to call for help when accidents happen on the streets and highways in and around Portland.  In fact, his job entails climbing to the top of the Fremont bridge through the hollow poles which support it in order to work on the camera up there.  THE VERY TOP!!  This bridge is 116.13 meters, or 381 feet tall.  He has even eaten lunch up there.  What is even more amazing is that before he did that, he was agoraphobic and acrophobic.  Evidently his first journey to the top, climbing up through the tube as it got smaller and smaller, cured him of that.  He told me that the sensation of opening the hatch on top and seeing blue sky is incredibly breath taking. 

We had a nice discussion as we ate our meals and drank our beers; I had wings with chipotle sauce, he had a burger and chips.  We discussed being progressive democrats, having to work with people from Molalla, (don't ask), the fact that he would not ever be able to retire due to a situation which arose at one of the places he had saved for retirement, and what would be next for him.  He knew he would not be able to stop working, and he hoped that he could find something that he could do reasonably well in his old age.  He had not figured that last part out yet.  We talked about my 20 dates blog, this new project, and the future of the U.S.  As we sat in the beer garden, it got colder, and while it was still kinda early, we decided to call it.  Well, actually, I did.  He suggested coffee, but I had already been geocashing that day, and I was pretty tired.  Plus that, unlike most other north-westerners, I abhor coffee.  Yeah, no, I don't just dislike it, or feel ambivalent; the smell and the thought of it makes my skin crawl.  I am sure that if I didn't have to make coffee drinks every day and come home smelling like coffee and milk, (I am also dairy intolerant), this would not be the case, however, I do, and it is.


Walking through the bar from the beer garden, I noticed two people sitting at a table wearing chicken head masks.  While amusing, not really surprising or out of the ordinary for things you might see in a bar in Portland on a Thursday night.  John and I said our good-byes, parted ways, and as I bundled up in my bike gear, it started to sprinkle.  I knew that at any point during the ride home I had just as much chance of having hail fall on my head as I had the setting sun hitting my face.  There was just no telling.  As I headed west and then north down the East bank Esplanade, I looked across the river.  The riverfront lights were on and light bouncing off the flowering trees created a lovely halo effect which framed the backdrop of the city nicely.  As I rode over the Steel bridge toward home I noticed the dramatic effect the city's lights had on the new construction in the recently gentrified Northwest Industrial District and wondered at how different a place can look at night.  In the light of day, Portland looks like a lush and beautiful city.  At night, the city is transformed by lights of all different colors, revealing geometric visions and commercial agendas.  


The evening had been a quiet one; I felt more like I had seen an old friend than met a new one.  John and I have such similar perspectives on the world, it felt so comfortable sitting there drinking beers with him, talking about the downfall of Metallica and riding around the Fairmount Loop in the west hills.  At the end of the night I had to seriously reconsider my thoughts on MINNESOTA and my suspicion of the inevitable alien invasion.   Then again, lulling me into a false sense of security is most likely a pivotal part of their grand plan for assimilation, so maybe, for just a bit longer, I will stay wary.  After all, safety is its own reward.

Number Five: Portland and the HIPPO

Todd, an older gentleman whom I decided was probably not from Minnesota, sent me an email suggesting several places to visit: Kelly Point Park, Union Station, The Montage, and Hippo Hardware.  I sent him an email in return, narrowing the options to two; Union Station and Hippo Hardware, and he chose Hippo, which was great news, as that was my first choice.  I told him in the email that I don't do the phone thing, but neglected to tell him that it was for safety's sake, as I do not want to inadvertently give a person I don't know my phone number.  He assumed that I just didn't have a phone, and informed me that telephones had been around for about one hundred years.
I think most people might have been slightly offended by this sarcastic observation.  As for me, it was difficult to know whether I should be offended or impressed, but quickly settled on the latter after considering the extensive use I make of my own sarcastic wit, and came to the conclusion that I might actually learn a thing or two from ol' Todd.

Hippo Hardware opened in 1976 and has been a Portland institution ever since.  Other stores have arrived on the Portland scene since this time, which have inevitably grown into places where you will find more reproductions of old stuff than actual old stuff, but Hippo has remained true blue, carrying a ginormous array of older light fixtures, plumbing supplies, tubs, toilets, doors, door knockers, handles, knobs, hippopotami, and just about anything else you might or might not need for your house or apartment.  The other truly magnificent thing about Hippo Hardware is that it is a hardware store.  I really miss local hardware stores.  They used to be my favorite places to go when I was little, back before we had internets and the Google.  There was one in particular right down the street from my Dad's antique shop that had a big brass hammer on the door for a handle and stacks of bins of shiny metal objects to peruse.  On very special occasions Dad would take us there; he would lead my brother and I through the store to the back, and as we walked, my eyes would visually fondle all of the amazing tools, fixtures, picnic furniture and items which I could not name, but rather, dream wonderful and amazing usefulnesses into.  He would stop and talk with some of the men who worked in different areas of the store, and when he arrived with his purchase at the front counter, he would tell the lady to put it on his account.  He would then take the hardware back to his store, and, as we watched, he would fix something.  Sometimes he would even let us help.  I think this enchanted place is the reason I never really could get on board with Home Depot.  The stale air alone guarantees you can't wander the aisles for more than a half hour without feeling sick, and good luck getting someone to even talk to you, let alone remember your name.

Hippo Hardware, in addition to being a place where people actually talk to you, is a monument to tragic beauty: it is, for the most part, a pretty typical looking building, except for the ginormous paintings of Hippos masquerading as columns on each of the four sides of its six columns out front, and the dancing (and singing?) Hippo painted on the garage door on the side of the building.  For most Portlanders, however, it is a sight which has all but blended into the landscape; we have not only grown accustomed to the flowering trees, beautiful mountains, and amazing hills and valleys of the Pacific Northwest, we are also very used to the intoxicating sight that is Hippo Hardware

Todd and I decided to meet out in front of the Hippo at noon, where we were greeted by a sign on the door that read, "All children under twelve must be accompanied by money".  I love signs that end in unexpected ways while simultaneously making fun of young children.  Todd is a very tall man, or rather, appeared to me to be tall, as I am quite short.  It is a simple matter of geometry and perspective, and unfortunately, on this front, tall people seem a bit mysterious to me as I can never truly assess how tall they are.  This is a good explanation, now that I think about it, as to why I am uncontrollably attracted to tall men.

Todd is an architect, and he started explaining his love of The Hippo by telling me that though he does not believe in reincarnation, he feels strongly that at some point he had lived in the 1930's, due to feeling, on a daily basis, like a pull toward that time period.   Additionally, he told me, a couple times a month, he feels an even stronger pull for some reason unknown to him.  This would explain his telephone comment in his email, judging by the description of these mysterious feelings, he was most probably around to use them at the time of their creation.

Walking into Hippo is a bit overwhelming.  As you walk through the front door, you are faced with a dizzying array of handles, knobs, and drawers full of what I am sure are secret and lovely treasures.  Once you walk through the front room, there are three or four ways to turn in order to search out old and wonderfully detailed items with which to adorn your home or craft object.  As Todd and I stood in the front room, he bent gently toward me in order to look me in the eye as he spoke.  While I never knew any of my grandfathers, I am quite sure at least one of them would have spoken to me in the same way if he had ever taken me to a hardware store; as if he were about to reveal to me a world of lost treasures from days gone by.  As we walked through the labyrinthine space, Todd and I occasionally stopped in front of odd looking objects, and wondered at their purpose, or, try and figure it out by identifying small moving parts that we could recognize.  This is one of my favorite games.  I call it, "what the hell is that thing?"   The good thing about this game is that, unlike basketball, you don't have to be really tall to play it.

We went up stairs, we went down stairs, we saw strangely shaped (and colored) toilets, amazingly ornate doors, an Elvis bathtub, beautifully detailed vintage light fixtures, all different types of hot and cold faucet handles, a full wall of door knob plates, head boards, numbers and letters, both large and small, a mantel piece, a giant assortment of keys of all kinds, and, of course, a very interesting collection of hippopotami.  All in all, it was enough stuff in enough spaces to feel like you would need more than a day to really see everything, just like in the Louvre.

As we walked through some of Hippo's darkened rooms chock-full of stuff, Todd lamented that while the Rebuilding Center is an incredibly great place, it was, unfortunately, out-Hippoing Hippo in certain respects.  As I looked around, I could see what he meant; the panel doors, fixtures, and bins of handles all reminded me of things I had seen in the Rebuilding Center at one time or another.  Somehow, though, through it all, I believe that Hippo will survive, if only for the reason that it is, in its purest form, a perfect symbol for the City of Portland itself: it contains oddities, novelties, and incredibly functional items, and some things that you just have to stop and wonder, "what the hell is that thing?".

Number Six: Portland and the Slam

 On Saturday, I was to go with a man named "Mike" to the Japanese Gardens.  Sadly, at the last moment, "Mike" cancelled, citing last minute school stuff as the reason.  As of the time of this writing, he has not written a follow-up email to reschedule.  I suspect foul play.  Due to this, and to the fact that I had no one else lined up for another meeting, when a man named Joe emailed me Sunday afternoon about a poetry slam at Backspace at 7:30 that evening, I immediately responded that I would go.  While Joe is not from Minnesota, Joe is a man.  Joe is, in fact, my sixth man, which brings me to my most recent and violently effervescent concern.   This most recent concern makes my suspicion of Minnesotans seem, well, insignificant.  Not one woman has answered my ad.  Not one woman who has been searching the Craigslist "strictly platonic" area wants to take me somewhere she loves.  I feel like I should be alarmed, like I should be worried about the women of Portland.  I know for a fact that women exist here, I see them all the time.  Is it that they are too busy to love something in Portland, that too many things in Portland are too testoster-oni (oh, yes I did) to be loved, or, is it that they do not want to share what they love with another woman?  I don't know, but I will get to the bottom of this.  Right after I solve that Minnesota thing, I am all over it.

I met Joe at 7:30, at Backspace, on NW 5th and Davis, right around the corner from Ground Kontrol.  Backspace is an internet cafe which also doubles as a music venue all nights of the week, and triples as a life drawing space on Saturday afternoons.  They also have Ms. PacMan.  When I arrived, I saw that there was a $10 suggested donation at the door, which I would have paid immediately, had I not had to wait for the girl taking money to finish her conversation with her friend who was keeping her company while she was supposed to be taking money at the front door.  Portland hospitality at its finest.  I was very happy to see though, that not only was this a poetry slam, this turned out to be the Championship poetry slam for the city of Portland.  What amazing luck!  I had not been to a good ol' fashioned poetry slam since I attended the ones many years ago at the glorious Cafe Lena on Hawthorne, which has since closed and turned into a very mediocre breakfast place called Jam, which, as far as I know, does not host poetry slams.

Joe told me in his email that he would be wearing the same hat he was wearing in a picture he emailed to me of he and his father.  Not only was Joe wearing the same hat, he seemed to be wearing the entire ensemble he was wearing in that picture. When I arrived, I found him sitting at the computer bar next to a young kid wearing a Red Sox Hat and sitting in front a manila file folder labeled in big, sharpie marker-scratch, "Poems and Short Stories".  This folder was over flowing, and as I looked hard at the kid, it was difficult for me to imagine he had been alive long enough to write so much.

Joe and I had very little time to talk before the pre-slam band, Hollywood Tans, started playing, but I did find out he was born and raised in California, had moved to Portland to buy a house, as the houses in California were too spendy for him, and, that he had purchased his house at the height of the market, so now he was underwater, and could not sell his house for even 80,000 dollars less than the original purchase price.  Joe, like so many of us, was in a bit of a pickle, financially.  When I asked why he liked Backspace and the poetry slam, he said he liked being around the energy, and that he himself had been a writer but had not had the opportunity to write in a long time.  He had been putting all of his energy into his failed marriage.  He then showed me a bunch of pictures of his dogs on what looked to be an iPhone.  He was pretty happy that he had gotten them in the divorce.

The band started playing loudly.  Every once in a while Joe would lean over and say something, but I could barely make anything out over the noise of the band.  Joe was incredibly soft-spoken before the band started playing, and he did not do much to raise his voice after they began.  Then he handed me his small blue notebook to read.  He had been writing in it when I first walked in, and now, as I looked down at it, I had the all-too-familiar "don't be an asshole" feeling in my gut.  It is scary to look at someone's art before you know whether or not it is any good.  How will you tell them it sucks if it does indeed, suck?  I hate these types of conundrums with almost complete strangers, but, I kinda felt like I had to read it, so, as the loud, punk-ish band played, I read several small pages filled with Joe's tiny words.  Joe had written pages and pages and pages regarding his feelings on the human race, how we had to change in order to accept change, how we had to stop fighting wars, accept each other; all very big picture, human nature general stuff.  Not much about anything personal, really, but clearly, he was passionate about the fact that humans are wasting the gifts given to them.  Everything had been written in blue, until the last page, which only contained a few lines, and were written in red ink.  While the exact wording escapes me, in essence it was kind of a journal entry, which stated that his ex wife had moved out, and that he was free.  I leaned over and asked if he had written it that day.  He nodded yes.  At that moment I completely forgot about my concern that I wouldn't know what to say if his writing had been bad; it had been replaced by a worry that made the first seem kind of trite and arrogant by comparison.

Ten minutes later, the band stopped, and the poetry started.  What it came down to was ten finalist poets, vying for 4 spots to go to Boston to compete in the national poetry slam.  The judges were five people the slammers grabbed from the audience.  It amazed me that they put the fate of these poets in the hands of people who might not have known anything about slamming poetry, but, hey, what do I know?  That is probably how the best judges are chosen.   The MC was a poet himself and helped the crowd get into the "slamminess" of the poetry by riling us up and having us scream at the tops of our lungs intermittently throughout.  He said "fuck" and "motherfuckers" a lot.  He kinda reminded me of Abbie Hoffman, in a good way.  He would introduce poets and call for applause as they exited, he called on the judges to hold up their judging tablets and would then shout the scores out to the score takers.  On occasion, he would attempt to add the score up, get it wrong, and defensively yell at the crowd, "hey! it's Portland!  We don't do math here!"  At one point when one of the judges did not come back in a timely manner from a pee break, he presented a poem he had written about the catholic church that really knocked my socks off.  This is noteworthy because I am not generally moved by that topic.

For the most part, the poets were all quite young; most looked to be in their early to mid twenties, except for one older gentleman who turned out to be the best of the night.  Their obvious youth, combined with the force and conviction of their deliveries, made it an incredibly moving, gut wrenching and inspiring thing to watch.  It was an especially hopeful thing for me to witness, as I have of late been very sad at the growing population of people who seem to relate to one another via some form of technology exclusively.  Just the other night, I attended a salon held at a gallery downtown, and a gentleman I had just met excitedly showed me "Angry Birds"; a craze that he and my BFF told me is currently sweeping the nation.  It dumbfounded me that this ridiculous game was something that people were excited about.  Throwing birds at bricks to knock them over?  REALLY?  Instead of using technology to improve as human beings, we are using this amazing advancement to bore ourselves into an early death-like trance, so that when death finally comes, our thumbs will be our only working parts.

The gang of poets was equally divided gender-wise, and the topics ranged from anger around having been a meth baby, fathered by an alcoholic, to a poem pleading to take back the word "love" from Hallmark and use it as it was meant to be used; as if it actually meant something, and, to not be feared for what that meaning might be.  The man pleading the case for love actually pounded his chest several times.  That is raw devotion.  The emotional range these young poets presented was astounding, and their ability to connect with their audience was impressive.  I am finding it an awkward thing to attempt to convey what the poets so profoundly and articulately did that night, but I can tell you that the feeling in the room when any of them were doing their thing was raw; purely human.  All of us in the audience were with them, cheering them on, feeling the connection they all screamed for.  These people had so much experience and wisdom, so much fight in them, there was no way you could watch and not be profoundly moved.  There was no way you could not root for them.

The Slam encompassed two rounds of readings and then a final death round between six finalists, narrowing down to the four who would go to Boston.  Joe left after round one, and asked if we could see each other again.  I told him that the project I was doing kept me pretty busy, and as he left, I realized that he might have been seeing this as a date, so I decided that I would have to start changing the way I was contacting people and collecting great Portland places.  I had planned on staying only through the first round, but I could not tear myself away; I was still wanting to feed on the ambrosia of human experience.  My new addiction had become the poetry slam, and I was all in, all in until my glass would sit empty and bone dry, all in until I had drunk too much to see straight.

Round two was astounding, the poets all bringing out, unbelievably, more impressive stuff than in round one. One of the poets rhythmically and lovingly delivered a poem about how great Portland is, which, though incredibly clever and perfectly conceived, felt like a bit of a cop-out in a crowd of Portlanders, and I believed he would probably get the high score, until he was followed by a young, beautiful, and incredibly articulate Russian woman who spat out a poem about the hypocrisies of the U.S. government and its tradition of colonialism.  That poem pretty much brought the house down.  The poet who followed her took the stage in a state of disbelief and resignation.  There is only one thing we Portlanders love more than our city, and that is criticizing the U.S. government.  Getting to hear an immigrant more eloquently state what we are all thinking daily is just icing on the cake.

In the final round, the last six standing were the most impressive in this field of incredibly impressive poets.  Young women who had been screaming in the first two rounds were now seen pleading, the young men, more wildly gesticulating in order to make their point.  The I Love Portland poet told a story of he and his mother in the hospital, his mother suffering from cancer, calling him "handsome" through her plastic tent. It was devastating.  Another poet, a woman, used the analogy of the measurement of paper in weight, and contrasted this with the value measurement of the events certain papers record.  Brilliant.  In the end, the four poets were chosen, all deserving, and, happily, due to the large amount of donations taken that night, another poet would be financed to go to Boston as an alternate, and the sixth poet would serve as an alternative alternate in case one of the five going could not go.

Then, one of the young women who was not chosen got up on stage and told the MC and the audience that all of the poets had a gift for him, to thank him for being such a great supporter, coordinator, and all-around miracle worker for the poetry slam community.  As he stood to accept the coming gift, they all dropped their pants in gratitude.  He was so moved, he turned to the crowd, and also dropped his pants.  It was a true triumph of the human spirit, to be sure.

I left Backspace exhausted, happy, and in some way, relieved.  The whole reason I started doing social experiments was my fear of the loss of connection with others.  So many experiences of late have been about reality TV, internet games, and on-line dating.  In this spare, old cafe, I found no Angry Birds, only young poets single-handedly renewing belief, resurrecting by sheer will the taste, smell, and sounds of the human experience.  No matter how technologically advanced we ever become, there will never be anything to rival the experience of a person, a perfect stranger, opening his chest for you for a look inside.  My only fear is that once open, no one will understand what they are looking at.

Number Seven: Portland and The Garden

As Mike still had not emailed to reschedule, when a man named "Martin" (he wanted me to use a pseudonym due to a mildly illegal activity described in this blog), emailed me and said he wanted to show me the Japanese Gardens, I felt like I wouldn't be stepping on anybody's toes.  (Mike, if you are reading this, I have given you up for dead.  I am sorry if you are indeed dead, but, dude, you never got back to me.)  We decided to meet at the Rose Garden Gift shop in the late afternoon on a beautiful sunny and warm day.  The day was so clear, I was able to see several mountains from where I stood in Washington Park.  Nothing short of miraculous for Portland in April.

Via email, Martin had told me that I would be able to recognize him by his brown jacket, baseball hat, shortness, and a band-aid on his nose.  I arrived early and had time to sit and look at the mountain and the city below.  All of the Cherry Blossoms were beginning to release the lovely and delicate pale pink and white flower petals from their sleek, thin branches, and when the wind blew it made for a delightfully enchanting effect.  

Martin arrived looking exactly as he had described himself, just two or three inches taller than me, his nose, appropriately bandaged.  After we introduced ourselves, we walked toward the Japanese Gardens,  and I slung my backpack on my back.  He asked me if it was heavy, which took me by surprise just a bit, not being used to courteous men, and I quickly replied that it wasn't; only full of my bike helmet and clothing.  As we neared the gate, he told me that he "was not that eloquent" when speaking of himself.  If I have heard this once, I have heard this six times.  So, I asked him to speak about why he loved the Garden.

Not necessarily the picture from
Martin's desktop.

He told me that there were more stories than he could tell, but that the Garden held special meaning for him for several reasons, three of which he would relay.  Martin was revealing himself to be quite the mystery.  The first was destiny.  Many years ago, he was working in California, doing work that I cannot describe, as I have forgotten what it was, but, suffice it to say that he worked all day long on a computer and would frequently change the picture on his desktop.  Then one day, he came across a picture of a scene so lovely, it stayed there, for years.  He did not know what or where it was, but he loved it.  Then, one day, someone came into his office and said, "Oh, you've been to the Japanese Gardens, huh?"  Which was what pushed him to decide to take the transfer to Eugene the company he was working for had offered to him.  He was later transfered to Portland, and he became a member of the Japanese Gardens.

The second thing had to do with the aforementioned illegal activity.  This goes back several years to the ice storm here, when Martin had been going through a very rough time.  His father had just died, his sister had just died, he was in the middle of an awful divorce, and he was facing open heart surgery.  Martin decided that though it was hazardous on the road, and there was probably no one at the Japanese Gardens, that it would be worth some effort to try and get there in order to see the beauty the snow and ice would create.  He told me he felt at the time like the beauty might help lift him.  He drove to Washington Park only to find the main gate locked, but a side gate open.  He walked through and up and saw that the front gate to the Gardens was locked.  He decided that he had come too far to not try every option, so he walked around to the back.  On that day, walking around to the back involved walking through snow and ice over a very steep hillside.  When he got to the back gate, he saw that it was wrapped in chains, and his heart sank.  Dejectedly, he walked over to the gate and pushed on it, when to his surprise....it swung open.  He stood at the open gate, breathless.  He could not believe that in the middle of one of the worst and most challenging times of his life, he had been given such a gift.  He walked through the Gardens alone, its silent white light reflecting back to him.  He said that the rest of that day was much like that, wonderful things falling into his lap left and right, leading up to the culminating event at a Pub, where he walked in, sat down at the bar, ordered his favorite beer and burger, and began writing.  Several minutes after he arrived, a beautiful woman who had been in the bathroom sat down next to him and asked him what he was writing.  One thing led to another, and well, he ended up dubbing January 8th national Martin's Law Day.  Which, he explained to me, was the opposite of Murphy's Law, and only applied to him.  He celebrates this holiday every year.

The third reason he shared with me happened around the same time; he was dealing with an awful divorce, and had decided that he would not ever fall in love again.  So, he set about finding women only to talk to, maybe even hang out with once in a while.  One such woman convinced him (his word was "tricked") into meeting her for coffee.  He figured that he would meet her, stay for a half hour, and leave.  But, that is not how it went.  They met, and talked and talked at the coffee shop, then he took her to the Japanese Gardens, where they sat on a bench and talked for hours; until the Gardens closed.  Martin told me that it was on this bench that he fell in love again.  It was the same bench that he and I sat on as he told me these stories.

So there we sat in the Gardens, and he told me story after story of feats no mere mortal would ever dream of, much less get off his ass and put into action.  He decided recently to change careers and get training as a designer.  He would frequently pick up and just go places he had never been; small towns in Colorado, South Carolina, maybe even Connecticut; he just looked in the paper for cheap fares, would pack a small bag, and go.  He made it a regular practice to walk up to the most beautiful woman in the room and initiate conversation with her.  I was in awe of this small, humble man.

As we sat in the middle of the perfectly planned and intentional Japanese Gardens, something quite unintentional happened; I became overwhelmingly attracted to him.  It was the strangest thing.  I had felt nothing but inquisitiveness just moments before, and then, out of nowhere, that all too familiar, slow warming and nervous feeling in my stomach when I am near someone I am attracted to.  I kept looking at him, wondering how this could have happened.  I was on a path.  I had my future all mapped out, and it in no way included this man fouling it up with his heroic yet unassuming charms.

It started to get cold, and the afternoon was waning, so we decided to go our separate ways, and as we said good-bye, I put my bike between us to keep myself from spontaneously hugging him.  It was bad, the magnetic pull I was feeling toward him.  I turned to get on my bike, but realized that the sound of the birds was so lovely that I would walk home that day, giving myself the opportunity to enjoy the experience of spontaneous and unexpected attraction, to let it linger in my sinew as I walked down the hill from the Rose Garden and back to my little apartment in Northwest Portland.