Let's Travel Awhile

About a year ago, National Geographic Traveler published a profile of our city under the clever (by which I mean, "vapid") title, “Portland Reigns”.

The article was one of many paeans to Portland peppering the national press lately. The breathless pace and gushy tone spurred me to write a parody of bad travel writing. I tried to follow a few simple rules:

• If one adjective helps, two or three are even better.
• Stereotypes and generalizations are always a good choice.
• When in doubt, grasp onto a cliché as if your life depends on it.
• Keep your thesaurus handy...ermm…accessibly situated.

My parody kept getting longer and longer, until it was so ridiculously long (for a blog post) that I lost track of where I was going or how to bring it to a merciful end. I toyed with cutting or serializing it. Then I decided to just publish it. Now it’s in your hands. Savor.

East Chesterburg:
An Old-World City Perched on Tomorrow’s Rim

This resplendent metropolis gets just about everything right: From the friendly natives to the homebrewed deliciousness that embraces every visitor.

Here in the self-proclaimed “City that Can,” restaurants pride themselves in serving locally-prepared meals, and every barkeep is quick with a jovial anecdote that will, one day, become a part of your own tribal lore. Local crafts and an innovative commitment to “green” living are worn like a comfortable flannel suit in autumn, and are as reassuring as a bowl of warm applesauce. What’s more, this is a city that does not hesitate to flaunt its funky charms, just as its residents feel no qualms in sporting billed caps, no matter the weather. Add a flair for the ubiquitous and verdant, and you’ve got a vacation-in-the-making for all but the most hard-hearted of hard-core adventurers.

East Chesterburg isn’t the first place you’ll compare to Paris, but it’s not likely to be the last either--and that says a lot. It’s among a handful of American towns that has managed to pair civic engagement with a soupcon of down-home bonhomie that will have you saying both “oui!” and “whee!” From its trendy downtown nightlife scene to the downscale bohemian haunts that typify the North Gulch Arts District, this is a town that welcomes everyone with the warmth of a Golden Retriever’s tongue.

Starting on the Right Foot

We launch our East Chesterburg adventure with a hearty breakfast at Tiny Harpo’s—a charming diner occupying a prime spot in the heart of the town’s bustling business arrondissement. Before entering this petite boîte, be sure to pause for a moment to listen to the autoharp player on the corner. Sing along if you must. You’ll be delighted to leave a small tip in his open case.

As we wipe the steam from our glasses, we’re greeted by a proprietor who can only be described as brobdingnagian. Nobody personifies the character of an East Chesterburgian restaurateur better than the bistro’s namesake. With his trademark, “Halloo!,” and belying his 400-pound girth, he sweeps us dexterously to a cozy booth by the window, then deals a handful of menus with the speed of a Las Vegas blackjack dealer jacked up on diet pills. In short order, our winsome server fills our water glasses and makes sure we all have napkins. Keeping her promise to return with hot coffee, she takes our orders with a vivacious professionalism that feels as comfortable as a pair of broken-in huaraches.

I choose the “Tiny’s Special” – an adventuresome mélange of scrambled eggs and la saucisse de Francfort topped with a tangy hollandaise sauce. You will be well served by selecting the same, or perhaps you’ll opt for a simpler fare from a bygone era. On any given morning, many of Tiny’s patrons can be witnessed enjoying a light repast of toasted bread squares while perched on angular chairs, perfectly resplendent in parti-colored smocks, knit leggings and the customary cap tilted rakishly.

With a satisfied belch and a neighborly handshake, we emerge from Tiny’s into the rays of a sun that radiates its beams on East Chesterburg many days of the year. When you visit, you’ll want to chat with Tiffany and Amber, animated purveyors of Girl Scout Cookies outside of the Thrift & Save just around the corner. I choose a box of Thin Mints, but you would not be wrong to pick otherwise. Don’t forget to pet the puppies for sale in the box over by the shopping carts.

A Place of the Present with a Forward-Thinking History

East Chesterburg is all about sustainable, low-impact living. As a matter of both public policy and personal ethos, visitors and residents adopt organic, people-powered modes of transportation, including walking and bicycling. People here stride with a confident bounce as if effervescently buoyed, stepping with the crisp snap of a sugar pea from one of the farmer’s markets that thrive, year-round, on every vacant lot. They ride their handcrafted two-wheelers attuned to a personal soundtrack best described as a gumbo of free jazz and proto-bluegrass. Don’t be surprised to see pedallers cruising the neighborhood lanes three abreast, each snapping thumb and finger in a syncopated rhythm that brings to mind a fringed surrey frozen in time by the flash of a daguerreotype camera wielded by Matthew Brady himself.

My first post-repast stop of the day is the East Chesterburg Municipal Museum, housed in a former civic building marked with a postmodern slash of architectural frippery. Entering the museum is like stepping back in time while looking into the future through a kaleidoscope of wonder. Time your visit just right and you’ll miss the rainstorm that will pass through town just a few hours before the city rolls up its sleeves for lunch.

Lovingly curated, this museum is chockablock with refreshing artifacts that reveal more about each visitor’s character than that of those who crafted them. You’ll want to linger at each exhibit to revel in the intrinsic knowledge and inspiring message it imparts. The old-world docent dozing in the corner is Mort, and he’s been manning his station for longer than anyone cares to remember. If Mort tells you to not touch something, it’s a memory you’ll cherish for the rest of your visit. A stop at the gift shop will leave your pockets full of postcards and informative brochures. Edna, the gift shop clerk, will give you $1.55 in change and a whimsical smile that says more than you think.

Stridently Moving Forward

East Chesterburg is so thoroughly trendy these days that at times it seems past retro and outside of outré. An uncounted number of people here live in town or in the suburbs, often in houses or apartments, many with driveways and garages. No taller than most people, East Chesterburgians are not often described as diminutive, though they might be if viewed from the proper distance. A formation of Canada Geese migrating overhead might be fooled into believing that the town itself is smaller than many cities, yet it is larger than others—something not every city can claim. One could live here for a hundred years and not meet every resident at least once, though you will feel as if you have, and you will.

Already hungry for lunch, I follow the recommendation of long-time resident, Herb Vouchsafe, and borrow a red bicycle which I ride to the outskirts of town to visit a rural eatery universally beloved by local omnivores. My handlebars glint in the sunshine, eliciting appreciative waves from townsfolk picking fretless banjos and crocheting socks on rickety front stoops. A quick tinkle of the bell engenders peals of laughter from the youngsters jumping rope in each schoolyard I pass.

As often happens in this city, I find the place to which I was headed exactly where it should be. Mo’s Pig House is redolent of grease and the briny elixir of a seaside fishing shack, reminding me of the winter I hitchhiked from Amsterdam to Antwerp on a foggy morning, laden with a sodden backpack, a perplexing itch and a head full of Baudelaire. You will feel exactly the same as you peruse the written synopsis of food items and pricing that serves as a menu at Mo’s. I choose a beer-battered cheeseburger with a side of crispy sweet potato fries and tart kimchee, but you may want to try the “Pig House Sampler” – a veritable pupu platter of pork pies. The water at Mo’s is free, but a word of warning: You’ll have to remember to ask.

The rain is just returning as I finish my dainty banquet and settle the bill. Swaddled in a bee-yellow poncho, I mount my two-wheeled steed and steer northeasterly to East Chesterburg’s charmingly-named “Labor Town” – a gentrified neighborhood once home to the city’s blue collar community, now a burgeoning village where artists, musicians and writers bump elbows and trade coffee-roasting tips with retired pipefitters.

Before arriving in the district, I veer to the right for a quick visit to a local used bookstore, The Wormy Book, to meet up with the city’s leading naysayer-cum-raconteur. “I realized East Chesterburg was going to be my home within 20 minutes of first arriving at the bus depot.” says Bud Skullnick, the bookstore’s Sales Team Guide. (“We don’t use hierarchical titles here,” he explains). “It had something going on that is indescribable. I guess I couldn’t imagine myself going anywhere else,” he explains while scratching the long white beard of his personal attendant, an elderly man of Asian descent. “Moreover,” he continues, fiddling a straw boater that I soon learn is his signature look, “I decided that if I was going to live here until I die, I was determined to spend every single day agitating for something to happen.” After only one day in town, I understand the sentiment, though I would be hard-pressed to explain it.

I'm introduced to another form of East Chesterburg’s agitation when I visit Stuff Mart, a cavernous repository of purposeful materials of every imaginable description. The exterior of this emporium will delight you with its medley of whimsical objects crafted from other objects, but inside it's a $5-million-a-year business overseen by a wizened man who can only be described as avuncular. Put this shop on your bucket list because it’s a sight no visitor should miss, both for its astounding variety and because it embodies the “East Chesterburg Way.”

"We move eight tons of product a day,” reports owner, William Sherwin, burning with conviction in a vintage Motorhead T-shirt and paint-splattered carpenter pants with worn knees. "The idea is to take what some people don’t want and turn it around to sell to people who want it. If we do it right, everybody’s happy. It’s the East Chesterburg Way.”

His goal, he says, "is to create a business model that can be given away to other places." One outcome is that Stuff Mart has become a popular stopover and photo opportunity for visiting dignitaries who hope to emulate East Chesterburg’s economic success, the 16% unemployment rate and junk bond rating notwithstanding. Some weeks, Mayor Sam “Slappy” Simperson is here so often you may find him catching a little shut-eye between official visits by curling up in a quiet vestibule on the premises. When you visit, he’s sure to tell you, “People all over the world want to see this. We let them watch and learn.” He will then tweet a message to his 1,480 followers: “Just told a visitor the East Chesterburg story. Awesome!”

On the Fringe

Local business boosters have been doing their best to promote East Chesterburg with a campaign that defines the town as “The New Edgy.” Gurf Franklin, creative director of a internationally renowned ad agency, Spank Spank (formerly InterModalMedia LLC), gives me a synopsis of the multimedia presentation that sold the city leaders on the campaign. “My partner, Jambo Fripp, came up with the concept of edge-seeking,” explained Franklin as a raincloud scuttered past the multi-paned windows of the former rope factory that is the firm’s creative cauldron, known affectionately by locals as “The Old Rope Factory”. Over the course of the next two-and-a-half hours, he hammers home the concept that “humankind instinctively and continuously seeks the edge … the boundary…the outer limits… the border… the outside of the envelope… terra incognito … did I mention the border?” He grasps a saltine and snaps it in half to illustrate a point that leaves me, oddly, more curious than indifferent.

The hallmark of this boosterism is the annual East Chesterburg Alternative Fringe Festival for Transgressive and Movement/Audio-Based Arts (popularly dubbed “the Alt-Trans-Fest”), which hosts 4,287 events over 13 days, ranging from macramé workshops to community pig roasts and pet swaps. Contemporary dance companies compete with dressage enthusiasts for top honors in the “So You Think You Can Prance” extravaganza at the Veterans Exposition Hall and Natatorium, while close to 2,000 local indie bands plug in at virtually every bar, diner, bowling alley, rooftop, subterranean grotto, Masonic Lodge and tented parking lot within a fourteen mile radius of downtown East Chesterburg. You’ll be hard pressed to find a single local under the age of 40 who doesn’t clamber for the coveted all-access wristband for the Alt-Trans-Fest. These “young moderns”--a common reference to members of East Chesterburg’s flamboyant youth culture--enjoy nothing more than loud music, alternative transportation, social media, distilled or fermented beverages, and tam o’shanters. When they’re not blogging and tweeting about their experiences, they open themselves to experiential learning like breaded abalone simmering in a sizzling fry pan of garlic butter.

Red-bearded, energetic, and wearing shoes that squeak when he walks, the director of an emerging social media aggregator, Parlay Jones, likes to call young East Chesterburgians “the next generation of generational change agents.” Himself an owner of 14 recumbent bicycles (one of which is a functional whiskey still), Jones loves nothing more than donning a distinctive hat and joining his youthful compatriots at any one of the hundreds of ubiquitous rolling food carts that crop up at every intersection in East Chesterburg, waiting to serve dripping slabs of deep-fried cuisine to a hungry workforce of cultural creatives.

"The food carts are all about choice,” Jones likes to say. “Every single generation but my own had no choice over what they ate—or even when they ate. Now we like to mix things up and live in the freedom of the moment, eating on the sidewalk because we can, even in the rain. It’s what puts us on the cutting edge of the food empowerment movement. Honestly, it’s what makes us better than every other city in the world. That, and our tam o-shanters.” Sitting on the curb eating fried potatoes topped with chorizo-hummus and siracha sauce is a rite of passage for every young person in town, and you’ll not want to not be one of them.

Adventures in Wayfinding

To navigate East Chesterburg, whether by bike or otherwise, you’ll have to master some basic geography. First, imagine the Toohoioliatte River (pronounce it “TOO-late” unless you want to be laughed at) smartly cleaving the city, east to west, with the north sector (home of the city's downtown) on one side, and the south (home of the city’s tree-lined neighborhoods) on the other. In the northwest quadrant, you’ll find the upscale Upland Heights and the trendy and fashionable Nebbish Hill neighborhoods. The southeast is divided by Clifford’s Gulch into the gritty Lower Southeast and plucky Upper Southeast boroughs. The northeast itself is divided by Sully Swale, which cuts diagonally from southeast to northwest, and is further divided by Little Creek running northeast to southwest, and Littler Creek meandering in such as way to strategically disrupt the entire street grid throughout what locals call “The Lost District.” Curiously, while Little Creek is descriptively named, Littler Creek is named after an early settler, Jacob Littler, and is, in fact, quite wide.

The north-west dividing line, which extends to both sides of the river, is the verdant Boulevard Park, a 700-acre urban retreat that stretches for 15 miles and widens to no more than 25 feet. Paralleled by Park Boulevard, Boulevard Park is a narrow expanse of East Chesterburg’s wildest, most deeply green aspects. Built single-handedly in 1895 by Charles Percy McFitts, an amateur landscape designer with spare time and a 25-foot-wide horse-drawn scraper, Boulevard Park originally served as le grande allée leading to an outer greenbelt that straddles one of the region’s many bifurcated divisions. Nearly doomed to death by bulldozer to accommodate what city planners hailed as “The Freeway to the Future,” Boulevard Park has been placed on the local registry as a “Regional Place of Significance and Meaning.”

Thanks to former mayor Burt Patsy’s acclaimed anti-encroachment campaign, East Chesterburg is now widely recognized as a breeding ground for innovative creativity in the green sector. It was Mayor Patsy who challenged all citizens of East Chesterburg to limit their propensity to expand, saying opaquely, “You have to crawl before you sprawl,” often adding his signature salute as he peddled away on a customized unicycle.

Nowadays, in new East Chesterburg developments, shops are built at street level to provide ease of pedestrian access, while charming lofts harken back to an era falling squarely between the industrial revolution and post-modern Scandinavia. Simply put, East Chesterburg’s social fabric is woven integrally with the warp and woof of a modern Valhalla perched on the precipice of a new tomorrow. There is simply no other way to describe it.

Of all the city's uber-green spaces, your favorite will be the East Chesterburg Sunken Gardens, found on the edge of the Northeast Outskirts district. The Sunken Garden provides a transformative descent into the intricacies of the spiritual landscape. "What makes a good sunken garden is the sense of sinkage it provides,” says Roxy Delacorte, the garden's Curator of Culture, Art and User Interfaces.

Delacorte and I walk, step-by-step, from the Squat Garden—one of five blending seamlessly, this one populated by colorful koi finning under the Moon Bridge—to the Splay Garden, a wondrously realistic simulacrum mimicking a representation of the hanging gardens of Pompeii as envisioned by an untrained and marginally sane artist. The gardens are known to engender quiet contemplation and repose in everyone who pauses to look. Quite literally, you will want to lie down on one of the graveled paths and take a short nap. The East Chesterburg Sunken Garden manages to accommodate hundreds of thousands of visitors a year without losing its air of solitude amidst the jostling of elbows and vigorous snapping from the Snapping Turtle Eco-Pond.

A World of Art and Culture

Becoming tiresome, I trade the tranquil Garden for the bustling streets of "The Gulch," epicenter of East Chesterburg’s thriving arts scene. This former mill district is now peppered with outlets of urban gastronomy and cultural brio, brimming with fine restaurants, jazz joints, cafés, and upscale handcraft knit boutiques. East Chesterburg’s legendary jelly and jam purveyor, Progesteron, occupies an entire city block at the vortex of the district—so large that a local ordinance mandates that each customer be issued a portable rescue beacon to be activated if lost. (You’ll want to devote an entire weekend to the world-famous Marmalade Room, but don’t miss the easily-overlooked Jellied-Seafood Annex).

On the second Wednesday of alternating months, a crush of art lovers moves at a measured pace from gallery to gallery, stopping only to pause at each waystation to absorb the ambiance and eat unpasteurized cheese. Wear black, or risk standing out as a tourist. Cross Street is noted for its edgy, post-modern electronica such as the interactive art exhibited at NERVE: A GALLERY! Press the blue button on artist Lurv Speckle’s anthropomorphic sculpture, "Deity", and prepare to be surprised to hear a loud “squonk” while being squirted in the eye with what you will hope is lemon juice. The local arts college attracts the most creative of creatives, and the streets and alleyways are rife with crafts of all sorts, from cast bronze gamelan gongs to spatulas made from repurposed motorcycle fenders. Don’t miss the display of papier mache sculptures filled with sugar-laden sweets that art-lovers attempt to burst open with decorated batons while giggling like schoolchildren at a Mexican hat dance.

My local tour guide, Webb Masterson, informs me that “the creative arts in the region explicate and inform people about specific landscapes and their transformation onto a higher plane of communal consideration." He goes on to say, “When East Chesterburg’s bootstrap industry collapsed, the community had a hard time picking itself up. In the end, it was the arts that did the picking up. It was the arts that made all the difference, not the tax on cigarettes, beer and paper napkins, though some disagree.” You’ll want to disagree, but remember: You’re just passing through.

Many of the gawkers on the Second Wednesday Art Promenade live in expensive lofts overlooking Corner Square, a comely plaza featuring a wading pool that ebbs in tidal reflux, but others come from highly individualistic neighborhoods in other sectors of the city connected to the center by a web of transportation options. Streamlined Bauhaus-inspired trolleys trundle over parallel steel rails in a mode of travel harkening to Jules Verne’s steam-age, while bus service delivers throngs of fun-seekers both willy and nilly. After your visit, you will remember being part of this “scene” for the rest of your life, and will look forward to the day when you can tell your great-grandchildren about it.

A Burgeoning Cultural Ecosystem at Work

Later that evening, I arrive at the northern edge of an unnamed neighborhood to take an upholstered seat in East Chesterburg’s newly renovated Barnhouse Theatre for a smidgeon of entertainment and culture. While named for local philanthropist, Philo T. Barnhouse, I am surprised to learn that the venue is, in fact, a former goat barn. You’ll be surprised to learn that too, after picking up a brochure that was handcrafted from a mid-century mimeograph press.

As the house lights dims, we hear a sharp intake of breath from the audience, signaling the start of a rousing rendition of the company’s long-running, runaway hit, “Hungry, Hungry, Housewives” –an unbridled musical homage to an era of laissez-faire sexual mores. When we stumble out, eyes a-glaze, we are drenched with sweat and chocolate sauce, satiated by the show’s innovative amalgam of ribald shtick and aerial ballet, accompanied by an 18-member cello orchestra and a lone flugelhorn, artfully blown. The audience at every show is fashionably eclectic—spiffy grunge to quasi-professorial—but mostly warmly predisposed to intimidation. At intermission, the crowd makes a beeline for the state-of-the-art soda dispenser for a frothy serving of a cucumber-raspberry infused vodka and cane-sugar daquirito. Like me, you’ll be glad you asked for artisan-harvested sea salt on the rim of your glass.

While enjoying the respite of intermission, we are captivated by a series of interactive monitors telling the history of East Chesterburg’s cultural renaissance. Jim Beevey, the theater's Manager of Community Engulfment notes, “We’re the only venue in town with a fully-functional wifi uplink to a cutting edge server that integrates each audience member’s feed to their personally-tailored, multi-layered choice of social media mode. It’s what the next generation of audience members crave, driven as they are to co-curate a communal cultural experience.” Beevey, a multitalented chap with a striped t-shirt peeking out from his unbuttoned charcoal jumpsuit, also produces the popular “East Chesterburg Happy Hour and Gallery Guide,” and plays jazz glockenspiel with a combo of like-minded devotees. Be sure to accept his invitation to an early morning of skeet shooting.

After the play, we retreat to a beguiling bistro in a narrow zone straddling two of East Chesterburg’s more piquant neighborhoods, Greek Town and Turk City. The Thanatos Café is famed for it’s aioli-smothered soutzoukakia, crisp flash-fried hakanakaloxia, fire-roasted phipholococcyxolitis, and blackened-xxyzysosakakia in red sauce. (The latter surprised me with its subtle blush of disomos, reminding me of the keftedes found on the island of Skiathos). After serving our food with a flamboyant flourish, our waiter leaps onto the table wielding an earthen, Mycaean stirrup jar from which issues a stream of ouzo to be caught directly in our open mouths. We laugh with abandon, then smash our soiled plates while shouting “Opa!” The savvy traveler will note that Dmitros does not work on Tuesdays.

An Animated Night of Repose

After a day bursting with urban-exploration and personal discovery, I am grateful to stumble to my lodging at the trendy DeLouche Hotel and Swim Club. The desk clerk stops the dance music long enough to offer me a complimentary nightcap of codeine-infused, boutique-distilled gin. I’m also given a choice of either a cruller filled with foamed bacon-grease (topped with shaved-beeswax curls), or a dollop of aerated whiskey-whip cream squirted from a vintage seltzer bottle onto a pewter teething spoon. I opt for the latter, but you may choose differently. The party in the lobby this evening is a gathering of East Chesterburg’s boho-riche supraclass, and won’t end until the bruise of dawn stretches across the surrounding plains like milk spilled on a granite countertop. Like me, you’ll be too tempted to join in the festivities, but you’ll resist.

Finally ensconced in my cozy room, I curl up under a yak skin throw rug emblazoned with custom-beaded Walt Whitman quotes, choose a magazine from a stack of vintage erotica stocked in each room, and watch the Sonny Liston/Cassius Clay fight playing in a continuous loop on a mid-century black-and-white television with no off button. I sleep like a baby, reminded only periodically that the DeLouche is built above the central distribution hub of East Chesterburg’s main post office, right next door to the All-Night Metalsmithing Collective and the Acme Bakery Supply Company. An old-school vending machine in the lobby offers noise-cancelling headphones for rent.

Sad Farewells and Fond Memories

Next day, I arise early and soon have my hands wrapped around a steaming mug of craft-roasted, artisan-brewed coffee at Caffe Assange, the dawn watering hole for East Chesterburg’s burgeoning community of life-style oriented creatives. We’re seated at a communal table sharing a bowl of deep-fried challah balls dusted with confectioner's sugar and porchetta crumbles (the café’s signature petite appétit dejeuner du jour), engaged in a lively debate about vegan cheeses, when founder and gastro-preneur Garth Feybart, announces that the café will be closing at noon—not just for the day, but forever. We gnash our teeth and trade email addresses with our fellow diners, vowing to meet again in other cities. When you visit East Chesterburg, you will be disappointed to find that Caffe Assange has already been replaced with something not quite as cool.

Too soon it is time for my visit to everybody’s new favorite city to come to a close. My cabbie, Herb “Toots” Thimpkin, bleets his horn to signal that I must take my bow. While all the world may be a stage, it is time for the curtain to fall on this play, and it does so with little drama. I’m not ashamed to report that I feel a tug of emotion as I say goodbye to the City that Rarely Dozes. As he drops me at the train station, Toots sums up my experience in a quietly reflective manner: "East Chesterburg revolves around things in ways we don’t understand. We throw our doors open and hope for the best. At heart, we’re just local people trying to be responsible and caring. You might want to bend at the knees when you lift that bag.”

NEXT STOP: West Chesterburg

Editor's Notes:

1) East Chesterburg is not a real town, nor is it meant to stand in for Portland, Oregon.

2) Astute readers and transcontinental pilots will note that the photograph at the top of this post is actually Lincoln, Nebraska.

3) The line about "colorful koi finning under the Moon Bridge," is directly plagiarized from the National Geographic article, where it was used in a description of Portland's Lan Su Garden. We apologize.

4) Some Portland natives do carry umbrellas. Travel writers who say otherwise are perpetuating a canard.

5) A canard is also a duck.

Bourbon Jockey: The Documentary Proof

Last week, I participated in a form of collaborative creative engagement that contributed to building cultural community. In lay terms: I played music with a band in a bar for beer.

My fellow music-makers and I (a.k.a. Bourbon Jockey) appeared at Roots Organic Brewing Company in Southeast Portland. We were the evening headliners, as evidenced by our name written prominently on the chalkboard by the door.

We had fun. We helped the establishment move some beer. The people who left when we started to play were planning to leave anyway, and good riddance to them. We kept the volume to a level that allowed amiable conversation by those who were willing to shout at each other. Friends, family and strangers mixed. No fights broke out.

In addition to myself (intrepid front man), Matthew Jones (on upright bass) and Alan Cole (on other guitar), we were accompanied by a young fellow we call “Conga Dave” on account of not knowing his full name. When we last played at Roots, Alan left the stage in the middle of a tune, announcing “I’m going to see if they have a conga drum somewhere.” He rooted around a storage closet and retrieved said drum, then called one of his Lewis & Clark students up on stage to join us. With that simple act, Bourbon Jockey acquired a drummer. We invited Conga Dave to play along last week, though we neglected to confirm whether the closet at Roots still contained a conga drum. It didn’t, so Dave improvised with a few buckets, a shaker and a tambourine played with his foot. In the parlance of musicologists, he employed idiophones rather than a membranophone, but we don't need to get technical about it.

I pulled some video from the bar's security cameras for the benefit and edification of fans who were too stove up to make it out on Thursday night.

1) This first one is a Tom Waits song from whence we derived our name: “Jockey Full of Bourbon.” Sorry about my massive cabeza filling the frame.



2) This next one captures the Bourbon Jockey spirit. While we were playing, we noticed a lone fellow in the corner playing along on a concertina. He was also dressed as a pirate. We coaxed him out front to join us in an impromptu rendition of the Hank Williams classic, “Jambalaya.”



3) A little blues and testifying, with our version of the T-Bone Walker tune, "Stormy Monday" in which I blow on a harmonica and yell.



4) You're still here? Well then here's our take on "Route 66."



If you're hankering for more (and who wouldn't be?) you can find a few more videos on YouTube. Search for "Bourbon Jockey Roots Brewing" to find them. Or not.

We'll be back sometime in June, so put a hold on your entire calendar for the month. I'll keep you posted.

Of Your Assistance I Implore

Dearest fellow,

I humbly seek your most urgent attention for a matter of most import. To my attention has come news that a musical group of note by which is known as “Bourbon Jockey” will be performing at your city at the soonest Thursday night from this date. It has been my dream of my lifetime to enjoy such musical pleasure in the city of Portland Orgon.

My late-uncle, who was most fortunate to be Minister of Foreign Culture in the nation of Nigeria before his recent death, wished me to have this absurd pleasure. Having wished that for me and to assure such would take place, he placed a sum of $3,000,000 million US dollars in a secret account. This sum to be used to travel me to listen to your Bourbon Jockey, of which I am biggest fan, on May 20, 2010 at Roots Organic Brewing Company.

Having demised unfortunately of an accident, my uncle failed to leave instructions regarding the sending of this money to my account for the purpose of hearing Bourbon Jockey. My remaining relatives which are of evil intention have made to block me from my due right to this sum. More so, I am locked in a closet and prevented from all person contact except by the internets.

Of favor to me and in interest of your enjoyment of fine music, I am implore you to visit the Bourbon Jockey performance on May 20, 2010. It is of my knowledge that Bourbon Jockey makes western music of roots variety for the enjoyment of the people and the drinking of the beer.

I ask of your assistance to please attend this most important event for to write to me describing its wonders after its completion. This way I will have enjoyment too. Also, it would be of true assistance to also send me your bank account number and all codes which are necessary for making it of access to me.

For learning more, one may read of the famous Bourbon Jockey in this writing of blog from many months ago.

Sincerely and with honest hope,

Mrs. Martha Kwesi Ubunde

WHO: BOURBON JOCKEY featuring Mighty Toy Cannon

WHEN: Thursday, May 20, 2010. From 8:00-ish to Whenever-ish

WHERE: Roots Organic Brewing Co., 1530 SE 7th, Portland OR

HOW: By the plucking of stringed instruments, vocalization and blowing of reeds.

WHY: Why not? You know you want to.

WHO, EXACTLY, IS BOURBON JOCKEY?

Ross McKeen (aka Mighty Toy Cannon): Vocal, Guitar, Harmonica
Matthew Jones (aka Mr. Jones): Bass
Alan Jones (aka The Perfesser): Guitar and harmony vocals
+ Mystery Guest Percussionist known only as Conga Dave

Portland Ugly

Travel + Leisure recently issued its report on “America’s Favorite Cities” – a ranking of thirty cities across the nation based on the merits of each as a travel destination. I suspect that residents in each and every one of those cities are now griping about the injustice of the scoring. The online report cleverly avoids describing the top secret research methods used to derive the scores.

I’m sorry to report that Portland fell short on many important measures. But first the good news: Once again, our rugged outdoorsy, green “brand” earned us top ratings in the following categories:

#1 Public Parks/Access to Outdoors

#1 Environmental Friendliness

#1 Summer Vacation

#1 Safety

#1 Public Transportation and Pedestrian Friendliness

We came in a respectable second place for being “Athletic/Active” and in the "Farmer’s Markets" competition. We placed third for cafes/coffee bars and scored a decent #5 ranking for “Peace and Quiet.” What’s so funny is that they didn’t give scores for “Love” and “Understanding" (yes, that is a clumsy Elvis Costello reference). We are the fourth most intelligent city.

Since we only scored tenth in the "Friendliest" category, I feel justified in saying, "Suck it, St. Louis!"

It is on the cultural front where our deepest shame is apparent. Portland landed at #19 for theater. Even Cleveland was ahead of us in the 12th place slot. Seattle only made it to #14 (behind Las Vegas at #11, even though that city received the lowest score for "Intelligence" ). Our “Classical Music” score was a middling #16, while Museum/Galleries and Historical Sites/Monuments slunk in at the bottom with scores of #23 and #24 respectively.

What really hurts is our #17 placement for “Attractive People.” Worse than the numerical score is this inane description:

“Portland’s well-documented alternative lifestyle, which may account for its [top ranking] for overall quality of life/visitor experience… may not conform to most visitors’ standards of ‘normal’ beauty.”

Translation: Portlanders are freaks.
At least we didn’t get this comment:

“Cleveland may be internationally recognized for its #1 ranking in affordability, but there’s no getting around the fact that its residents are uniformly hideous to look upon. Visitors to Cleveland may want to take advantage of the city’s #2 ranking for classical music; closing your eyes while listening to the Cleveland Orchestra provides a welcome respite from the monstrous appearance of local residents.”

Okay, so I made that one up. My point is that the one thing worse than annual city ratings by travel magazines is the writing in those magazines.

Portland Adult Soapbox Derby Weekend!

Would Culture Shock be doing its job of keenly observing art and life in Portland if we didn’t mention that the 2009 Portland Adult Soapbox Derby is this Saturday (August 22, 2009)?


Since 1996, racers have been speeding down the twisty roads that flank Portland’s own volcano, Mt. Tabor, risking life, limb and dignity. What began as an impromptu guerilla event seems to have matured--though just a tiny bit. While there are now rules and a $100 entry fee to defray costs, it’s still a rambunctious affair. Fortunately, it has not taken on the stink of big corporate sponsorship; while PBR and New Deal Vodka have logos on the flyer, most of the sponsors are local.

The event rulebook mandates that vehicles have no fewer than three wheels making contact to the roadway (no maximum is specified), and that gravity is the sole power source. Vehicles must have functional brakes (the organizers clearly state "no Fred Flintstone brakes"). Builders are allowed to spend no more than $300 on each car. Perhaps most importantly, "no pyrotechnics, fire, or fireworks are allowed in the park or as part of any car." Water and water balloons are considered acceptable weapons for deployment against other cars.

On the registration form, entrants are asked to state a preference as follows:

Our car is on the side of (check one) . . .
Art: ___ Science: ___

The racing starts with preliminary heats at 10:00. One fan recommends going early in the day if you want to see the more “colorful” and wacky cars – by the end of the day, only the fast cars are left in the competition.

For this event Portland Parks has made an exception to its standard “no alcohol” policy by allowing the organizers to set up a “beer garden.” You can bring wine and beer (no kegs) and consume your choice of refreshing beverage within ten feet of the race course. A map of the course and spectator areas is available at the event's website.

I haven't decided whether to put this on my own cultural calendar for the weekend; however, Portland's drinking water reservoirs are on Mt. Tabor and might need to be protected by the Miniscule Blue Helmets. *


* As of this afternoon, Blue Helmets have landed on the Eastbank Esplanade, the Oregon Coast, the Pearl District and Timberline Lodge. One is on his way to Alaska.

More From the Arts Front

Has Culture Shock given you more arts advocacy than you need or want? Are your gullets glutted with our pro-arts sentiments?

Perhaps you're already sold on the notion that arts and culture are societal salves --balms to cure economic catastrophe, reverse rampant underachievement, and assuage the anomie of the aimless. If so, our relentless advocacy may smack of beating a horse that already drank the Kool-Aid.

Or, heavens forfend, some of you may not be buying it at all. You've heard all the arguments in favor of the arts and all you can say is "pish posh" and "pizzletwist." For you, the arts are nothing more than a shiny charm bracelet--a little gris-gris stuffed in a juju sack to make us feel better. Or you think the arts are elitist and unable to survive in the rustle-tussle of the marketplace. "The fat lady has sung, " you declare. Enough said. Period. End of story.

To every one of our dear readers, it's my duty to tell you that we're duty bound to be hidebound on this issue. What would you have us do? Throw up our hands and throw in the towel?

Every once in a while, somebody famous says smart things about the arts that are ... well ... more eloquent than anything we can say. Rachel Maddow, for instance. That MSNBC pundit says smart things all the time--about all kinds of issues. She recently spoke at Jacob's Pillow, the annual contemporary dance festival in the Berkshires, and shared this brilliance with the audience:

Sometimes we choose to serve our country in uniform, in war. Sometimes in elected office. And those are the ways of serving our country that I think we are trained to easily call heroic.

It’s also a service to your country, I think, to teach poetry in the prisons, to be an incredibly dedicated student of dance, to fight for funding music and arts education in the schools. A country without an expectation of minimal artistic literacy, without a basic structure by which the artists among us can be awakened and given the choice of following their talents and a way to get to be great at what they do, is a country that is not actually as great as it could be.

And a country without the capacity to nurture artistic greatness is not being a great country. It is a service to our country, and sometimes it is heroic service to our country, to fight for the United States of America to have the capacity to nurture artistic greatness.

Not just in wartime but especially in wartime, and not just in hard economic times but especially in hard economic times, the arts get dismissed as ‘sissy’. Dance gets dismissed as craft, creativity gets dismissed as inessential, to the detriment of our country. And so when we fight for dance, when we buy art that’s made by living American artists, when we say that even when you cut education to the bone, you do not cut arts and music education, because arts and music education IS bone, it is structural, it is essential; you are--in [Jacob’s Pillow founder] Ted Shawn’s words--you are preserving the way of life that we are supposedly fighting for
and it’s worth being proud of.”

Though Maddow's statement is spreading on the interwebs, I credit the website Dancing Perfectly Free as the first place I spotted it. The photo is by Christopher Duggan.

The Yobs Cometh

Whether we’re sunning on the deck of Culture Shock’s Worldwide Headquarters atop Valhalla View Tower South, driving around town in our Toyota Emasculas, or pounding down boilermakers and eating jo jos at the Coff-Em-Up Club, one question your correspondents are always pondering is this:

How can the performing arts attract new audience members in this age of media saturation, economic meltdown, crumbling infrastructure, global jihadism, melting icecaps, rampant greed, unbounded sloth, celebrity idolatry, and booze-soaked, devil-may-care, willy-nilly nihilism?
Twitter?

We’re trying. Lord knows we’re trying. But do we really understand the risks we’re taking when we try to “engage” audiences? A recent story in the London Times Online may serve as a cautionary tale by bringing attention to a potential downside to attracting new audience members—particularly those who may not be familiar with the refined manners we’ve grown to expect during our high-brow cultural outings.

The article, titled “Mind your step: It’s a yob’s night at the theatre,” starts:

“Coming to a theatre near you: sex, violence and drunken high jinks — and that’s just the audience. A number of West End theatres are now employing bouncers to cope with intoxicated patrons who fight, fondle one another and even urinate in the auditorium. The yobbish behaviour has led to theatregoers being ejected during performances and police being called to some of London’s most successful shows.”

Now I can abide with alcohol-fueled hi-jinks, and I can tolerate the urinators, as long as they're downstream from me. But fondling? One another? I'll have no truck with such shenanigans. Is this how far the western world has fallen?

Where does the blame for these “vulgar antics” lie? Some commentators attribute the hooliganism to low ticket prices instituted to draw the youngsters through the doors. Others say it’s the liberal availability of the devil’s nectar before and during performances. One might argue [not me] that the rowdy behavior now on constant display at every West End theatre [emphasis added] simply harkens back to the age of Shakespeare, when unwashed stinkards would mill about during performances, quaffing flagons of poultrouse, eating fried currcakes and wiping their greasy, sugar-encrusted fingers on each other’s fobkins and pendergrasts.

All I’m saying is let’s be careful and not get too crazy with the audience engagement initiatives. The Law of Unintended Consequences, what ho and all that.


NOTE: If any of our readers found this post disturbing, rest your eyes on the picture below, found while searching Google Images for “yobs.”

100 Years of Blogging Dangerously

Gather ‘round me youngsters, and I’ll tell you a wee tale from old timey-time. You might even call it a legend, ‘cause it’s the story 'bout how your great-great-grandpappy became the blogger known ‘round these parts at that Mighty Toy Cannon.

Before I git started, one of you tykes might just top up my glass there. Don’t be stingy now. Fill it up to the top and plop another one of those olives in there. Oh yes indeedy! That’s what I call tasty. Okay, simmer down now and pay attention.

It was the long, hot summer of 2008 as I remember it. I wasn’t doin’ nothing what amounted to anything. I was just a lost soul sitting outside of the social network peering in through the window like a hungry dog lookin’ at a pork chop. Everybody those days was startin’ to blog and facebook and twitter and twatter, and all kinds of crazy things they was doing. I could hardly keep up with it all. It was just one big mess of intercommunicating that would raise hackles on the head of a hoarhound in heat. You see, we was all learnin’ to get along without having to look each other in the face.

One day that fellow you know as Uncle Jeffy sent me what we used to call an e-mail message. The “e” stood for “electrozimbonic,” and it was the way we used to talk to each other. That was the time right before holographic iBrain implants made communicating as simple as sayin’ “Howdy do?” to your neighbor. Nowadays y’all are used to communicatin’ using jes’ your brain waves. Back then we had to flap our lips or use our fingers to make words.

Well, I remember that July day when Uncle Jeffy (we called him Culture Jock) sent a message to a mess of us that read, “Hey. I need some help making this here Culture Shock blog more interesting and entertaining.” There was another word he used--it’ll come to me in jes’ a second-- provocatitious? I’m not sure if that’s right, but it’ll have to do for now.

Ol’ Culture Jock asked, “Would you be willin’ to lend a hand?” He said it would be like an old-timey barn-raising. The way he told it, we’d all pitch in and drink lemonade and eat biscuits when we was done. Everybody else … I forget their names now … jumped in right away, but I was naturally skeptical. You might have even called me dubious.

Well, I said to Culture Jock right off, “What the heck would I have to say ‘bout anything?”

Right back at me, he said, “Go on! You say interesting things all the time! Everybody says so, they do.”

Then I said to him, “What if I want to stay 'nonymous ‘cause I don’t want nobody finding me out and learning my secrets?” I didn’t really have secrets, but we had this thing called “privacy” that we used to let our heads worry ‘bout back then.

Just like that, he answered, “Heck. You could just make up some crazy old name and nobody would ever know the difference.”

So I threw one last thing at him: “What if I get in one of my moods for weeks at a time and jes’ stop writin' anything?”

You see, that was a time when this old fellow you're listenin' to had important work to do. There was grants that had to be written and arts that needed to be administrated. That was before the Council of Overlords passed the Oxygen Tax on Breathing, givin’ us a dedicated funding source for all the artistic and cultural stuff you now enjoy for free. Nowadays, if you’re born a Creative, you get all kinds of special mollycoddling, and you live the life of Goldman Sachs, looking down on regular people from atop your highrise units over at the South Waterfront Protective Compound. Back then, we was underappreciated and never got squat from nobody.

These days, things are good as pudding for artists, that’s for sure. I still regret that we couldn’t stop the robots from replacing human actors though. That was the one battle in the Great Culture War we lost. I gotta admit, after that happened, theater got more … what’s the word? … consistent. But we still have the ballet!

Anyways … where’d that martini shaker git to? Pass it over here quick, ‘cause I’m starting to feel parched with all this story-tellin’. Ahh, now that’s what I call a pleasing refreshment!

As I was saying, it took a bit of jawing, but Culture Jock finally convinced me to give it a go. “Don’t worry about writing posts on any kind of reg’lar schedule,” he said, “Nobody ever keeps up with blogging! Shoot, most bloggers give up once they realize nobody out there gives a hoot what they got to say.”

I guess that must have convinced me 'cause the next thing you know, I done posted something! My very first blog post. Jes’ like that, I was on the Internet Highway plying my trade as a gol’darned blogger by the handle of Mighty Toy Cannon.

By the end of that very first year of blogging, I had published 168 posts on Culture Shock, not to mention another 42 on a darn site of my very own, Mighty Toy Cannon (which I named after myself on account of it was all mine). I was as hot as a meth house on fire with a basement filled with kerosene! I could scarcely believe how much time I was wasting writin’ up some of that crazy stuff most every night. Lookin’ for the pictures to go with every post was half the fun! Lord knows, I was pleased to use that word “published” all the time, ‘cause it sounded so awfully important and all.

Those were good times back then. We was all posting things left and right and willy-nilly. Sometimes we got all serious and grim about topics, especially when some politician was actin’ bat-shit crazy. Some called us high-and-mighty and smug, on account of us tellin’ folks how things ought to be. You woulda thought we were in charge of the world! And you know what? We shoulda been, dammit!

Other times, we was jes’ a bunch of cut-ups, jokin’ around, trying to make people laugh and forget their troubles. We was bustin' people up like they was chifferobes! Lord knows, them was troubled times back then. People wanted a good laugh and we gave them what they needed!

I know, I know. Truth be told, we didn’t have a clue in heaven what our Followers wanted or liked. Most times they just read things and kept real quiet, like hidin' in the woods from a grizzly bear when your hands is full of fish heads dipped in honey. When that happens, you try not to jerk fast so as not to be noticed any more than you already are. But we knew they were there.

We always figured our brilliant writing had them readers cowed. That’s right, I said it, they was cowed by our extraordinary show of intellect. Every darn one of them readers wanted to comment, you know they did. But did they? No! They was scared to say nothin’ on account of we set the bar so goddamned high! I know it’s a grievous sin to be prideful, and I expect I’m gonna burn in hellfire and all, but it’s gotta be said before everyone forgets what it was like back then!

No, I’m not cryin’ sonny boy; I just got a piece of dust up in my eyeball. Which one is you anyway? Little Baby Cannon the Third? That’s sweet. Now why don’t you just get me a little more ice while you’re up and about. Might as well pass that bottle over too. That’s a good boy.

Now where was I? Oh, sure there was some posts I’d just as soon forget. Some of them still sneak up and haunt me now and again, makin’ me wonder what the heck I was thinking. But, other posts still make me kind of prideful to this very day, I have to admit in all modesty.

Pretty soon, me and my Culture Shock pals were startin’ to draw a little attention to ourselves. People were even admittin’ in public that they were Followers. Every now and then, other respectable folks would notice and comment about the crazy things we wrote.

You want to know who? Well, for example, people like those brainy guys at Art Scatter. They said a thing or two now and then.

You don’t know who I’m talking about? Well they were those fellows what won the Pulitzer Prize for Excellence in Cultural Blogging ‘round about 2022, the year Culture Shock was disqualified due to the Incident.

Yeah, that’s right-- they're the folks whose heads are on display down at the old Memorial Coliseum Museum and Fun Time Center. Why that Barry Johnson fellow was the last journalist left at the Oregonian when it was finally sold to the owner of the Pyongyang Gazette. Barry once wrote that one of my book reviews was the “best book review of the year” back in '09. Now I’ll grant you he wrote that after the year was but a week or two old, but it sure was a nice thing to say and he didn't have to go doing that.

Now quit all that wiggling or you’re gonna knock over my beverage and there’ll be hell to pay! I’ll be done soon enough and you can go back to gathering up sticks and twigs.

Pretty soon, more people knew me as Mighty Toy Cannon than by the name my folks bestowed on me at my birth. They was callin’ me things like “MTC” and “Toy Cannon.” Sometimes they’d mash it all up together as “mightytoycannon” and sometimes I'd called myself “MTCannon.” I’d be walking down the street and people would shout, “Yo! It’s the Cannon!” and give me the thumbs-up (when people still had thumbs), and they’d say, “I liked that post you posted!” I’d tip my hat and go on my way, holding my chin up a little bit prouder.

Well I tell you, that first year of blogging was something else. Some credit my series of "Election Countdown" music video posts in October of that year for having put Barack Obama over the top in that final election. Others say we were doling out hope at a time when hope and a million shares of General Motors wasn't enough to buy you a shot of Stumptown coffee.

I still have a hard time believing how quickly that first anniversary came around. You know what’s ironic? The traditional gift for a first anniversary used to be paper! You kids don’t even know what paper is, do you? That goes to show you something.

Shoot, at times that year seems to have flown by just about as fast as it took for Major League Soccer to fail in Portland! Other times, I remember it going as slow as being stuck in a hovercar on the 48-lane Nike River Crossing and Cyclocross Bridge to Vancouver before the Great Reckoning severed our relationship with our northerly neighbors.

You want to know what happened after that first year of blogging at Culture Shock?

Well, we’ll just have to save that for another time. I’m startin’ to think this glass isn’t going to fill itself. Skedaddle you little muskrats! Give this old man some time to think his thoughts by hisself.

Van Culture

You want to know what’s worse than a blog that hasn’t been updated for nearly a week? I’ll tell you what’s worse: The woeful demise of American van culture.

Sure, light rail, street cars and bicycles are all great and “green,” but there’s just no artistic flair in those sensible approaches. How do you airbrush a mermaid on the side of a bicycle? What’s the one thing that can save General Motors? The solar-powered super-van, that's what.

I know what you’re thinking: “Yes, of course more hip gibberish, more van-jive, more youth identification … all of that crap that you p.r. people come up with.”

I’m telling you, we came so close to discovering breakthroughs in van technology in the late 70’s. I blame Jimmy Carter, but others say it was the greed of Wall Street tycoons that killed research into van designs that rocked hard while achieving respectable gas mileage.

In case you have doubts, be sure to rent the groundbreaking documentary, “Dude, Who Killed the Super Van?” Here's the trailer:



By the way, that's poet Charles Bukowski appearing at about the 1:08 mark.

The King is Dead! Long Live the ... Who?

The media is so saturated with coverage of Michael Jackson’s death and retrospectives of his life that I’m reluctant to add to the noise. Plus the story has little to do with life and culture in Portland, the reflecting upon which is Culture Shock’s ostensible mission. Last night, I spent a lovely evening with past and present theater colleagues gossiping about the local art scene. Our conversation included great material for this blog, but the phrases, "cone of silence" and "off the record" were invoked so often that I'm afraid I'm speechless. Therefore, lacking any other ideas for a weekend post, here's what I'm thinking about this morning:

Many reports are drawing the inevitable comparisons between Michael Jackson and the other “king,” Elvis Presley who died in 1977 at age 42 (which now seems so remarkably young). Parallels can be spotted between both men’s incredible artistic achievements and the intriguing and/or bizarre nature of their personal lives and tragic circumstances of their passing. Then there’s Jackson’s brief marriage to Lisa Marie Presley that further cements the two together. (As a side note, Ms. Presley posted a heart-felt and revealing comment about her relationship with Mr. Jackson on her My Space page yesterday).

All this has me thinking, “What is it that elevates an artist from star to king?” Here’s a test that I think both the King of Rock & Roll and the King of Pop met.

You may be a King in popular culture if:

1. You have influenced popular music in profound ways, demonstrating a unique genius either in creating something new or in interpreting an existing form in such a way that the public’s perception of it shifts radically. For example, while I will quibble with Elvis fans who argue that he “invented” rock and roll, I agree that he thrust the music into the marketplace in a way that profoundly redefined popular culture. The same for Michael Jackson with R&B and pop music.

2. You are more than just a singer, but are a brilliant entertainer whose performances can be described as spectacles. More than filling an arena, you deliver a concert that is packed with charismatic showmanship worthy of the best of Las Vegas and PT Barnum.

3. Your influence extends beyond your songs and recordings to areas of popular culture such as fashion, movies and television.

4. The public has a deep fascination with your private life, and your private life also happens to be weird enough to deserve that kind of attention.

5. Your popularity and influences extend beyond racial/ethnic boundaries and can be found on every continent.

6. Your career is long enough to have an impact on more than one generation of fans.

7. News of your death spreads around the world at the highest speed possible given current technology. (Thanks to Twitter, news of Jackson’s death was near instantaneous).

8. News of your death warrants front page headlines – and I mean banner headlines, not just a front page article. Also, your death is considered legitimate “breaking news” worthy of interrupting Oprah. Also, your death is recognized with special television programming of an hour or more on the major networks on the same day it is announced.

I would argue that there are many stars who fit some of these categories, but only Presley and Jackson fit all of them. I’m open to argument and debate.

Here are questions for you to ponder and comment on:

1. Have I left any defining characteristics off my list?

2. Can you think of anyone else (past or present) who would qualify?

3. Do you see anyone on the horizon who might assume the mantle of “King” in the next decade?

UPDATE: Go visit me on my eponymous site, Mighty Toy Cannon, for a post about Mr. Jackson's moonwalking influences.

UPDATE: Bill Wyman (former arts editor for Salon, not the Rolling Stone) has some interesting posts about Michael Jackson on his blogsite, Hitsville, including one comparing Jackson and Presley titled, "The Lost Boys." He's also posted about the financial and legal clusterf*ck facing the Jackson estate, its creditors, and the vultures that have been pecking away for years.

La Ville la Plus Cool du Monde!

Yup, that's us, the coolest city in the world! At least, according to this month's issue of French Glamour. Check out the nine page spread on Portland--clearly, the French have excellent taste.

Even if you can't read French, do scan the text--it contains some real gems. For instance, how easy it might be to mistake Cannon Beach for Rio de Janiero. That we are, in fact, La Mecque du vert (I think I may make that for dinner tonight). Next time you need pizza, be sure to call l'institution hot lips. And did you know that pole dancing was invented in Portland in 1968? -- so proud, brings a tear to my eye.

The writer clearly got to know some Portlanders during her stay. She uses our favorite humble line about our home -- we are un bourg, pas une ville. And her summation of pop culture hits our proudest high points: Gus Van Sant, Pink Martini, and, of course, The Simpsons.

French Glamour suggests a stay of at least ten days to completely enjoy Portland's delights -- merci beaucoup!

The author also displays a nice bit of Gallic wit when writing about Pink Martini's latest album: "Hey Eugene, prenom masculin, mais aussi ville d'Oregon, hey hey."

Um. Actually, that's not that funny.

And that thing about French good taste? Remember, they revere this guy:

Mmmm, grilled cheese

Along with beer, bikes and strip clubs, good food has become embedded in Portland’s image. So I figure that reviewing a grilled cheese sandwich ought to fit Culture Shock’s mission of keenly observing art and life in Portland.

I dashed out of the office today to grab a quick lunch at the food carts at SW 10th and Alder, and decided to give the Savor Soup House a try. I’ve heard raves about the soup, but opted for the comfort food of grilled cheese sandwich. Today’s special was “The Tress” – grilled Tillamook cheddar on Grand Central sourdough with bacon and apple butter. If you don’t like that combo, you’re welcome to build your own, starting with a base of cheddar or gruyere and adding one (or all) of the following: Dijon mustard, giardineira, carmelized onion, sliced tomato, homemade pesto, truffle oil, Black Forest Ham, or applewood smoked bacon.

I sampled the chicken mulligatawny soup and will come back for a cup or bowl someday when the raining is pouring down (soon no doubt). The folks at Savor are happy to hand out samples in lovely china tea cups—no Seinfeld Soup Nazis here. You can read more reviews of Savor Soup House (and other vendors) at Food Carts Portland.

When the "Amazing Race" series concluded in Portland last December, the contestants raced to the “food cart pods” at 10th and Alder. Does anyone in Portland call them food cart pods? I didn’t think so, but then I found this recent story in the Willamette Week, which uses that phrase. (Perhaps the WW picked it up from television). If I understand correctly, the “pod” refers to the collection of food stands, not an individual vendor. What do you call them?

I love that Portland fills the edges of its downtown parking lots with food carts. Most serve good food at a reasonable price, and most strike the right balance between charming funkiness and “oh my god, is this really sanitary?” Here's another story about them from Northwest Palate Magazine.

If the Blazers want to develop an "entertainment district" at the Rose Quarter that is even remotely Portlandesque, it ought to include an outdoor (but covered) collection of food vendors like the food stalls I remember when I lived in Singapore as a teenager. Man, those were good eats, and the mingled aroma of Chinese, Indian and Malaysian foods was tantalizing. Forget about installing a strip mall of Fuddruckers, Chili’s and ersatz music clubs – give us places like Pok Pok and the trailers on SE Hawthorne and 12th.

The picture below is from Kuala Lumpur, but you get the idea.

Cultural Immersion?

As Portland's waterfront hosts the first major outdoor festival of the season, the city's Cinco de Mayo celebration, I realized I was feeling a bit nostalgic for Mexico. I have traveled in Mexico, but not for years. I have never lived in Mexico. But growing up in southern California, I realize I lived a life very "Mexico-adjacent."

Then the travel section of the Oregonian on Sunday featured California, with a strong focus on Father Junipero Serra and the Missions of California. So this week I'm feeling full-force nostalgia for a place that largely exists as a ghost world, which is the Mexico that used to include large swaths of the U.S.

One of the articles in the Travel section began with a father's decision to support the 4th grade curriculum in California by taking his family on a driving tour of several of Father Serra's missions. I was fascinated by the Missions as a kid; an aunt of mine had a gift shop just outside the gates of San Luis Obispo. But I know I romanticized these places--envisioning young men and women gardening and making pottery, occasionally attending Mass (like I had to do), lighting candles, etc. Hey, it sounded like the hippies I sort of worshiped in 1968, only with more romantic clothing. What I didn't realize about the Missions until much later was their purpose -- an effort by the Spanish colonialists to "tame" the heathen indigenous people.

In my fourth grade class in La Sierra, we created our own Little Spanish Town. Odd, now, that we called it that, rather than "Little Mexican Town." We made a mission out of refrigerator boxes, my mom made me a fantastic multi layered, many colored crepe paper skirt, and we made tortillas and danced the Mexican Hat Dance. The local newspaper photographed the event, and ran a picture featuring three of us in front of our mission -- my classmates Jesse Gonzales, Juan Martinez, and me (no Mexican heritage, but my Cherokee roots must have passed muster to the photographer). I love the photo now, because it sums up a lot of weird colonial complications: two young Mexican-American boys, a ten year old American hodgepodge German-Cherokee girl, posing in front of a Little Spanish Town in a middle class school in southern California.

So now we've embraced Cinco de Mayo as another holiday to have carnival rides, music, food on a stick, and fireworks, all in Waterfront Park. I think as Americans, we often relate to other cultures in an "adjacent" sort of way, putting our own spin on them as we hold on to our own remote heritage or the heritage of others. I don't think there's anything shameful in that; I actually believe it's part of our quirky charm. But I hope as we all grow up (still working on that) we engage with the deeper truths about these holidays and rituals, which gives us a richer experience with them.

So for Cinco de Mayo, while we drink our margaritas and toast "viva la Mexico," I'm not suggesting we also chant "down with France." But wouldn't it be great if we all knew what Cinco de Mayo was celebrating?