PROMISING NOTHING AND DELIVERING EVERYTHING (then VICE VERSA)

thank you for taking us at our instincts in our assessment of portland demography. as it turns out, though, someone else called the census bureau -- as well as some other number crunchers -- on portland and corroborated this blog's thoughtfully argued piece on what will certainly be dire, dire straits in the rose city if the (other) cool kids keep moving here. the conservative business press must have a closet obsession with micro-roasted coffee and bicycles, because, following on that article from the economist, this time the reportage came from the wall street journal.

we're proud that not only was the wsj article posted after the one from the economist but that it's dated may 16 (that's more than a month after the other article), which means that 'looking good in pants' is going to be scooping major journals and newspapers within a week or so. (we don't promise statistics, but we can do that kind of math.) we're also proud to have admitted our torpitude regarding hard data but to be delivering it anyway. true, we didn't do the leg work, but neither did the guy from the journal: look at the slideshow. if you know portland then you know that the guy got invited to someone's condo in the pearl and then walked around about one-and-a-half blocks of downtown for his entire survey. then he got on the phone and asked a couple of questions, the fruit of which, yes, we're using here. really, now, who would you say is the cannier investigative journalist?

for those of you who didn't bother to click through, great! let me encapsulate. all the smart young people are moving to portland, and there are no jobs here. [hyperlink to interesting friends' websites] all of my friends made portland really cool, and now people are willing to be severely underemployed in exchange for invitations to our parties. there's a guy in the article who seems to have had a pretty ok job at an independent weekly in oxnard before moving here. some of my best friends are laid off ex-employees of portland's weeklies. i wish that i would have made this blog more famous before he decided to come, because i probably could have dissuaded him. freelancers write me emails to let me know that they can help me with my job. they send me resumes. i only want my job because it is one. that's the lesson.

the meta-lesson: 'looking good in pants' exceeds expectations; portland, ore. doesn't. folks, it's june 1, and it's raining and maybe low 60s. you're unemployed and broke, you want to at least waste time in the sun, right? it's the worst of times. and seattle's the same -- rain and unemployment. i can't even make an a tale of two cities analogy. on top of that, vancouver is canada, so good luck getting a job there. the northwest is hopeless.

we don't hate, though. in fact, we'll all be late to work dance class because we're waiting for you to cross the intersection on your bicycle while you wait because you understand basic traffic laws. in other words, portland's probably not for you. but i will DEFINITELY go see your band when you come through here on tour.