HOW TO GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME...AND EVERY TIME THEREAFTER

it's tuesday, which means extended happy hour at yellow brick, where they'll be playing episodes of twin peaks in uncomfortably clear and flattened high-definition on the screen above the bar, with laura palmer's beauty queen smile presiding benevolently over the taps, the pizza oven and all of the exposed brick from where her picture is enshrined on the big chalkboard over the waiting area. portland, ohio, the staff would like us to think. and what do we think? before microcosm publishing moved back to portland, it had left the rose city to set up shop in bloomington. there were other cities with interesting architecture that hadn't over-happened (and had cheaper rents). so when "the simpsons" got the joke, it was probably already played out. and "the simpsons" joking about the new york times being the herald of the next end probably means that it isn't long before they get the joke too and it's all finished. but, for this week at least, we can be sure that most of america knows that the new portland is having lived in portland and blithely talking about how portland is over. cool. that should be good four at least four happy hours at twin peaks tuesday. but then the sneers will probably win out over our humble braggadocio as we're trying to figure out how to get back behind in front of the times. meanwhile, we've got an extra two weeks to figure out how to finish the inside joke about that wall on east broad. they've extended the deadline again. have people already lost interest in portland, ohio? or is the point of it all to be part of the joke. america the beautiful new cool. it's all over, folks (including being over it). let's never, ever speak of it again.

WAY TO GO OHIO, part 4; or, REWATCHING THE RAIN IN GALICIA

"columbus never came here, but when the city sleeps, what our dreamers discover is that we have always created our own collective inside joke, one still looking for a punch line, that begins with 'columbus never came here, but..."it goes on (and on, apparently). and i made sure that i walked us down broad street when i was walking back north with the illustration professor from the art and design college. he didn't seem to think it remarkable that the artist wasn't local (nor that the artist who had done the awful cutout sculptures for the plinths of the bridge down the street wasn't either) -- even after i made my reminder that the "finding time" public art project was supposedly mounted in celebration of the city's bicentennial. columbus wants to show that it's involved in larger culture, he said. and i, i told him that columbus might as well make its motto "we're not that behind." and i suppose that i had been setting myself up for it as i was waiting at the pizza place on 18th and oak for my call to karaoke to come last monday evening. i was sitting at the bar in front of where the bartender was circumcising the paper covers on the bendy straws. her former coworker (who it appeared had just been fired) was sitting one stool away from me. both of them encouraged my encouragement that he continue to escalate his raucousness. after he'd gone and one of the others who was waiting for the call to karaoke had come to join me, i told the bartender that the pizza place and its personnel dynamic reminded me of a place where i might have spent a little too much time once upon a time in portland. and of course she told me that i might as well consider columbus the portland of the midwest. you'd like that, wouldn't you. touché?

but now the election was over, there was some nice weather, and a lull, and that meant that i actually got around to immediately reading the paper that i'd lucked into after finishing my cold breakfast at katalina's on sunday. in the styles section there was an article on "finding the courage to reveal a fetish," and although the titular one was rather mild, i still felt warmed by the empathy and hilarity i would have shared with the author had i had the chance to tell her a recent story of my own. and then there was the "tour de farce" article in the book review about the book by tyler hamilton and daniel coyle on doping in professional cycling. of course, people, of course! but it felt nice to be in keeping with the times (or at least with the times). ...or was that nearly behind them? touché.

and in the magazine an article about the new economy as epitomized by the ace hotel and the battle for 29th street. feeling ill. then today, on top of the rain, i had a head cold, and i didn't feel like finishing the magazine article on inditex. "galicia, on the atlantic coast of northern spain, is the homeland of generalissimo francisco franco [as well as of mariano rajoy], but is otherwise famous for being a place people try to leave." my morriña. its paradox. get behind the times or get stampeded, columbus says. we've gotta get out of this place, all of us. (and, well, they're saying anyway that we might just be forced off this fiscal cliff.) but today was the perfect day for staying in bed and just reading something else.

WAY TO GO OHIO, part 3

"columbus never came here, but when the city sleeps, what our dreamers discover is that we have always created our own collective inside joke, one still looking for a punch line, that always begins with...," it continues. hopefully the joke won't be on us tomorrow when the heart of the heart of it all finishes up at the polls. all eyes on ohio. if somehow you hadn't heard: they're letting us pick the president. so, neighbors, expect us to call. expect us to knock. but for tonight it's karaoke. the not so calm before...whatever happens tomorrow...while far away at holocene, the site of the big election night party in 2008, tin house will be celebrating the release of its newest issue. "portland, brooklyn." you think you've been there, you say? and we all struggle to organize our reactions, caught off guard at having not been the first to jump (in writing) to that retrogressively prophetic conclusion. rats. if it weren't for the election, we'd have liked to have gone. what's important? the war of the culture wars. way to go, ohio.

WATCHING THE RAIN IN GALICIA

06/10/12 UA3542 depart CMH 6:40 a.m. arrive ORD 7:06 a.m. UA477 depart ORD 9:26 a.m. arrive PDX 11:41 a.m.

09/10/12 depart portland greyhound station 12:05 p.m. arrive grants pass 5:20 p.m. old ford pickup to fort freedomland (via the kerby mart) via the oregon redwood highway (number 199).

13/10/12 depart grants pass greyhound station 9:00 a.m. arrive portland 2:20 p.m.

17/10/12 DELTA9100 depart PDX 11:30 a.m. arrive LAX 1:52 p.m. culver city bus to santa monica/sunset blvd metro rapid to silver lake.

20/10/12 red line metro to union station flyaway bus to DELTA4678 depart LAX 1:59 p.m. arrive SFO 3:20 p.m. to BART to civic center.

22/10/12 DELTA9051 depart SFO 8:35 p.m. arrive PDX 10:13 p.m. (two hour delay)...rose city taxi to terwilliger and taylors ferry.

24/10/12 amtrak cascades depart portland union station 12:45 p.m. arrive seattle king street station 4:30 p.m king county bus 255 to kirkland transit center.

25/10/12 king county 245 to 255 to amtrak bus depart seattle king street station 10:45 a.m. arrive vancouver pacific central 2:15 p.m.

28/10/12 amtrak bus depart vancouver pacific central 9:00 a.m. arrive seattle king street station 12:45 p.m. amtrak cascades depart seattle king street station 2:20 p.m. arrive portland union station 5:50 p.m.

29/10/12 UA321 depart PDX 12:19 p.m. arrive IAH 6:15 p.m. UA4341 depart IAH 7:20 p.m. arrive CMH 10:54 p.m. (no delay despite the efforts of the edge of superstorm sandy).

and on october twenty-sixth, after at least three prior visits, i finally succeeded in being talked to by a staff member at solder and sons at main and cordova on vancouver's downtown east side. nonetheless, having already eschewed a book purchase that day, i considered it unfair to consider buying the copy of granta number 10 that was on the fiction shelves of the small store. travel writing. and "in this issue," just as it had started coming down outside, márquez's essay "watching the rain in galicia." but because of more immediate commitments, i only gave myself a moment to smile at the thought of shedding a tear at the title.

on the thirty-first (which was as early as was possible for me), under the sway of the urgent tone of that article in the next morning's article globe and mail, i voted. way to go ohio. or, i guess, we'll see. then i went to the library. i had a book overdue. but the main branch also had a copy of a book that included that essay.

"i don't know where the shame of being a tourist comes from," márquez writes. ...and i don't know how i feel about that statement. but it was better, perhaps, that i hadn't read the essay in that issue of granta, because even more than the author's observations on the galician rain -- and on the wind, "that sows the lunatic seed which makes so many galicians delightfully different" -- i appreciated the poem by lorca that this other collection had included as an inset on one of the pages. "it rains in santiago, my sweet love. white camellia of the air, shadowy shines the sun/it rains in santiago in the dark night. grasses of silver and of sleep cover the empty moon/see the rain in the street, lament of stone and crystal. see in the vanishing wind shadow and ash of your sea/shadow and ash of your sea, santiago, far from the sun. water of ancient morning trembles in my heart." and in those words by the poet from the vega of granada, my own (unknown) far away lament for the delightful galician lunatic i had met in andalusia. and then for everyone i had met there. and then for everyone i had more recently left. my morriña for all of the places i was already missing, and that which was even deeper, maybe, for all the ones that i hadn't yet been able to see.     

 

LALALANDIA; or, WHO THE HELL IS CARRIE BROWNSTEIN, part 2

it was a good thing that we didn’t run into each other during the couple of days i spent in portland between when the bus brought me back up from the lawless wilds and fire dangers of  josephine county and when i flew south a few days later. i made the decision to race that sunday in large part because it was sure to keep me out of harm’s way for the day in rainier. i did, however, flirt with potential disaster the next day in choosing the course of my ride, but lucky for the both of us -- and probably for the rest of the city -- the james john café is closed on mondays, and so i couldn’t stop to keep procrastinating there, even though i was having my flat fixed at the bike shop down the street. tuesday i either holed myself up in order to get back to work, or didn’t and did my best to get myself away from all of it and forget. needless to say i was happy to put and end to all of the panicked apprehension on wednesday morning by just switching her places. she could have the overdone (over and done) city that the aughts had essentially done for her so that all she had to do was show up and do it over. i was going to los angeles. it was sunny there. and hot, too, when i left the airport and stood in line for the parking lot c/city buses shuttle. by the time i got to silver lake where my big shot l.a. friend was waiting for me it had taken me more time to get between there and the aiport on the buses than it had to fly from portland. but i was enterprising and i’d already contacted a composer. i asked him if he could write me a song about a sweaty guy full of too much coffee on a two hour bus ride through culver city. of course, he said, so then i followed up with a question intended to confirm that he was famous, and he said seemed to be saying that he was working on it. (and i would have liked to have heard that song, too.) then he came back, with a rejoinder. and of course i was. the song was for my show, which was bound to be super popular because it was about me coming to l.a. and getting famous, so it was pretty much just an ifc serial comedy version of that new ben affleck movie, and there were already a million billboards up for that. it was also about a guy who goes to hollywood thinking that the idea of starry eyed midwestern kids moving to l.a. to make it in hollywood was just a popular myth that had been made up in hollywood. it was also about a guy who goes to hollywood and finds out that scientology was, apparently, a thing, and one of the episodes of the show centers a hilarious story that a starry eyed midwestern kid tells at a party about how he got mixed up and showed up to the church celebrity center in nothing but a pair of those mormon underwear hoping to ingratiate himself to some kind of kinky casting couch. but the thing is that it worked because that musical about the mormons was having such a great run at the pantages. also, guess what? someone had incepted me with the whole idea, and another one of the episodes would be about how the show was fake but the mission was real. meta-irony, like the bourgeois pig and the trashcan and all of the broke people faking it under the auspice of assumptions on the strip in franklin village -- only, like i said, the ifc version. could he write that song? but then i was on the strip and forgot about the soundtrack because there’s a sudden plot twist when the guy on the franklin strip selling the two principal characters a couple of last call cigarettes tells them that, yes, he will take a dollar because he’s more careful now about overdrafting his checking account. you see, his dad is a big money guy, and his brother does something with hedge funds. everyone watching will laugh when they find out that being sarcastically ironically poor is the new drunk (had been the new rich had been the new gay). in that episode, i tell the guy that the conversation is going to be in my show and he tells me that now i’m acting (which, in the show, the character playing me will be). the guy tells me that he actually has a script being looked at by someone that knows his dad, who is a big money guy, and his friend asks me in french if i can speak that. (not even on the show, i tell her.) but then everyone drops their lines because someone breaks a glass. cut. we should just shoot the episode where the jaded redhead bombshell is telling the story about when she rolled over in bed and crushed daddy’s cognac glass with her ass. then he kept drinking. there’s another episode in which i’m thinking about throwing it all in until an inopportune cloudy afternoon (another bus song) turns into an opportunity to walk across a deserted venice beach and frolic like a giddy toddler in a pacific ocean that i have entirely to myself. what? my show, i tell her. the french speaking oe. it’s kind of like that one that carrie brownstein does about portland, except that the overdoneness is exactly the point it’s making. so it’s actually eternally timely. or it can maybe ride some coattails and be the smart kid series for the people who live in portland and can’t stand that other show and won’t see the new ben affleck movie. or maybe it's just "girls" in franklin village. i don't fucking know. “but who the hell is carrie brownstein?” she asks me. um, duh. she’s a character in my show.