PORTLAND IS BURNING

that should have sufficiently apparent two years ago when our letter to sam adams asking that he use his mayoral clout to get courtney love cast as dazzler in one of the x-men movies never received a response. even if adams never knew love on the portland music scene in the late eighties, he could have tried something. and if he wasn't going to try then, hell, we would have been satisfied with a condescending letter. our mayor doesn't seem to know who his constituents are anymore, and that's not surprising: portland is forgetting itself.

perhaps that's too strong. it's just easy to resort to polemics after having our expectations and anticipation so thoroughly crushed. and no, not exactly by adams, although the depressing scene at the cirque du cycling criterium yesterday evening was what prompted us to see in better relief the sign that the courtney affair should have sent us so clearly all that time ago. maybe it's not that everyone forgot, or that no one cared. this year's race was on a cool and drizzly sunday, not exactly prime conditions for attending a street fair and spectating a bicycle race -- even if the drizzle did increase the possibility of spectating the splintering of more carbon fiber.

the event organizers should have kept the criterium on a saturday, and if they had, we all would have been treated to much better weather, conducive both to encouraging a greater turnout of spectators and assuring that those spectators were in need of liquid refreshment. the sun might also have encouraged more post-race strip downs, although the best of the eye candy from the categories one and two race had dropped out before the finishers made it into their final ten laps. granted, a saturday race would have conflicted with the heartbreaker at the alpenrose velodrome, the annual track racing event hosted by the gentle lovers, and what's the cirque crit without them? still (fatigue? come on! the lovers showed), the fields on sunday did seem to be smaller than in past years, and so the race wasn't much with them, either.

perhaps, though, there weren't any fewer riders than last year or the year before, but the event definitely seemed smaller and more controlled, which was no doubt due in large part to the tameness of the lawn parties on the course where it wasn't on mississippi. the bike messenger house on michigan between fremont and beech had a healthy showing for it's front yard barbeque, but other than there and at a couple of houses on albina between failing and shaver the crowds on the back streets were pathetic, and the partygoers could hardly raise cheers amongst themselves. people raised their voices more in conversation than in encouragement for the riders. hardly anyone noticed the crash.

what good are a stocked refrigerator and a brigade of mason jars in the face of all that? portland needed something dazzling at the cirque du cycling criterium yesterday evening, and no one in the entire boise-eliot neighborhood felt like stepping up to dazzle. it was the end of the weekend, sure. the parties were over. but it was the end of spring, too, and it was still cold and rainy, and everyone also suffered from remembering that we'd had at least a few solid weeks of semi-inspiring weather before the criterium last year.

it's possible that it was just a bad idea to go out after an afternoon nap. but surely the anticipation and the mason jar brigade should have helped dispel any lingering irritability? too bad the irritability was lingering outside in the neighborhood. it might have been better to have not gotten up at all, except maybe to go get a rental to take back to the couch. something fluffy and full of action -- but definitely not an x-men movie with courtney love playing dazzler. that never happened, and our eyes can no more pretend to see the glory.

it's the end of the metaphorical weekend, portland. the party's over. portland is burning, and we're all all wet.

christ. that stupid nap.