I live in Broad Ripple, where tattooed hippies with safety pins through their cheeks sit in the duck crap next to the canal with their bandanna-wearing dogs and strum guitars so that the tourists will give them money to stop.
I say that in order to establish my hippie-spotting bona fides.
And speaking from that position of authority, I have to say that Portland has got a serious hippie problem.
It's one thing to keep a few around for entertainment, like we do, but if you don't get the granola crumbs off the floor and use a cleaner like 409 to mop up the spilled bong water, pretty soon you wind up with a major infestation like this.
It's hard to clear out a plague of hippies of this magnitude, but it can be done. What you need is about a hundred armed forces recruiters with a stack of job applications in one hand and a bar of soap in the other...
May the record reflect that I told you.
ReplyDeleteShootin' Buddy
I hope you understand that we, conservative in flyover country, have designated Seattle and Portland as deposit sites for the hippies. Once we get this country back up and running like it was intended to run; we are going to relocate all of the flower children to that area.
ReplyDeleteJust thought I would let ya know.....
Steve
Now you understand why I resist my families pleases to move back "home". I just start itching anytime I'm out there more than a few hours. Dad is near the coast now, having sold the Montana house years ago, but still. . .
ReplyDelete"pleas". Sorry 12 hours on an airplane.
ReplyDeleteThe dream of the 90s is alive in PORTLAND Portland portland...
ReplyDeletePortlandia
ReplyDeleteReally anyplace in N. America where you have a world class bookstore, more than a few great eateries and concert venues concentrated in a small part of the city you will find what passes for hippies these days.
ReplyDeletePortland like San Francisco to the South simply chooses to flaunt their fauxhemians as a tourist attraction.
Yeah, just moved here last year. I thought Missoula was bad. Go west a bit, though, and you get into the farm country, and the thin out a good bit. Hillsboro isnt bad. On the plus side, hippies do put on a good farmers market...
ReplyDeleteGreat Scott! You're in Portland! The GOOD Portland!
ReplyDeleteGet thee to Powell's bookstore immediately!
I've directions to pie, too.
Yup...you NEED to get to Powells, and Voodoo Doughnuts.
ReplyDeleteSounds like U Hill in Boulder. I used to go there to see what the latest trends in piercings would be as the denizens there seemed to be on the cutting edge of body modding.
ReplyDeleteThere is at least one really good pho trailer downtown. Maybe two, but I had time to try only one.
ReplyDeleteYou should see downtown Asheville NC. And we got the topless rally back again for a second year!
ReplyDeletePortland musts:
ReplyDelete--Powell's, although I'm sure you know that already.
--Food carts. There are so many downtown.
--USS Blueback at OMSI if you want to tour a diesel sub. There are also a few steam locomotives, one of which is very famous, just to the east of the parking lot.
--Burgerville if you're looking for fast food.
--Multnomah Falls if you head out east on I-84.
Are you planning on going anywhere in particular besides Portland and Bend?
New Jovian Thunderbolt I prefer their 1890's song.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=mPKe9OfWs-M&feature=endscreen
Welcome to Moscow on the Willamette.
ReplyDeleteThe powers that be encourage the hippies and ban military recruiters.
But there are plenty of good eateries and lots of scenic beauty to be had. Toss in some local micro-brew and get outside of the big 3 lefty-towns (Portland, Eugene, Bend) - oops, gonna be in two of the three.......
Don't know if you've made it to Bend yet. Anyway, we washed the streets down this evening to knock the dust down a bit just for you. Good luck at the shoot.
ReplyDelete8>)
I keep a good selection of death metal on my phone for this very contingency.
ReplyDeleteOregon in general is a great, though schizophrenic place. The aforementioned Portland\Eugene\Bend triumvirate ignored, Oregon is about as Red State as you get. I guess it has been said there for a lot of years that if you can politically win every county that touches I-5, you can carry the state, hence the hippiness. You get out of Portland and Eugene though, and Oregonians are as country as any Indiana farmer or Georgia redneck. It really is kinda the best of both worlds if you avoid those areas, some of the best food in the country (I am talking about what you can buy at the grocery store, not just restaurants) and some of the nicest people anywhere. Plus, you can't even pump your own gas. If you could get rid of the liberals that fled the California that they created and grew fearful of it would be great. As it stands now though, they are determined to turn Oregon into The Peoples Democratic Republic of Great Northern California. My biggest gripe with the state, as a Native South Westerner, is their distinct lack of ability to pronounce Hispanic words, but their ability to pronounce French ones.
ReplyDeleteMmm, good micro brews and bacon donuts...
ReplyDeleteHave fun, try to make it worth the TSA gauntlet!
Don't forget Ashland for mega hippy status.
ReplyDeleteCody, I've experienced some of the same. Willamette often trips up guests though. Then there is the fun debate of Ore-gun vs Orry-gone aka west coast vs east coast.
Crater Lake National Park is another great place to visit if you have the interest/time. Thats about 2 hours south of Bend.
I understand that Mozart is quite effective as a hippie repellent.
ReplyDeleteWhen I checked into the hotel last year I believed they gave me my room key and my very own homeless person. I tried to refuse the offer but I was told it was a local law.
ReplyDeleteWalking to work or at night to a local adult beverage provider I would see the trendy young Portlandites putting out their recycle bins. As soon as it hit the deck, the homeless would swarm on it and put the cans and bottles into their cart for future sale.
I guess the homeless in Portland can be like bears, if you feed them they can be come a problem.
Gerry
My girlfriend just ordered a tourism brochure from Oregon. This is the confirmation email she got:
ReplyDelete--------------------
Dear [Whatsisname's Girlfriend],
Thank you for ordering the guides listed below from Travel Oregon! The gang wanted to make your Oregon experience as authentic as possible, so we decided to send your travel guides on a little adventure.
Before landing in your mailbox in a few days, your travel guides will soar alongside a rainbow-colored kite on the Oregon Coast, sit in the third row of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, ride a buckin' bronco at the Pendleton Round-Up (Let 'er buck!), and admire the Birds of Prey at the High Desert Museum. After exerting all their energy at these fabulous Oregon locations, your travel guides will shop at a local farmers' market and cook a gourmet meal with friends in the Willamette Valley, stroll through the Japanese Gardens in Portland, and windsurf through the Gorge.
Your dear travel guides will be so inspired after exploring Oregon's seven regions that they will love nothing more than to curl up on the couch with you and discuss future travel plans, while sipping a refreshing cup of iced Oregon chai tea.
Welcome to Oregon!
The team at TravelOregon.com
--------------------
Exterminate the brutes...
Throw in a few Irish Spring grenades first. We can be reasonably sure the dogs didn't knot their own bandanas so that's their out.
ReplyDeleteI just had a flashback to the hippie infestation episode of South Park.
ReplyDeleteCrimson Trace, Leatherman, Columbia River Knife and Tool, a dozen or so micro-brews, Pendleton distillery, Tillamook dairy--forget Wisconsin v California cheese!--shall issue and you can carry in a bar, full auuo-friendly...
ReplyDeleteToo bad about the hippies and the "anarchists".
JFP:
ReplyDeleteThere is no debate.
Pronounce it "Ory-gun" if you don't want a native to shoot you and hide the body.
@ New Jovian Thunderbolt
ReplyDeleteI keep TELLING you people...Portlandia is a DOCUMENTARY...not a skit comedy. Seems to be my fate that all sorts of cool things start to happen in my home turf after life forces me to move to FLORIDUH of all places!
+1 for:
Powell's books
Horsebrass pub (nasty parking but try the scotch eggs!)
Saturday market (if you're there long enough)
Washington Park rose garden (might get lucky and catch a Shakespear in the park production)
Deschutes Breweriy (in Bend, WOOT!)
And if you have the time, try going the long way round Mount Hood on your way back to Portland (assuming you're driving)...lots of nice scenery over that way and coming out of the gorge. (Hood River, Cascade locks/Bonneville dam, Multnomah falls, CR historic hiway, Vista house)
Tam:
ReplyDeletePortland,OR, ALL of California, New Jersey, Massachusetts and of course, Broad Ripple are FEMA designated concentration camps.... err "RELOCATION" camps for the Flower Children. Didn't you know that?
Head to McMinnville to see Howard Hughes' spruce goose and a very impressive aerospace museum. Also very good wine country.
ReplyDeleteKristopher: I've lived here since I was 10, and know a million natives, and we all say "or-a-gun", roughly.
ReplyDeleteNot "Ore-gun" (close!) or "Orry-gone" (I have never, ever, ever heard the "ory-" pronunciation.)
(And while the Horsebrass, as Pssthpok says, is nice, their scotch egg is actually pretty mediocre.
Gustav's does it better, and they're a German restaurant!)
"Ory-Gun" is the way Washingtonian gun-nuts pronounce it. Partly to irritate our Ory-gunian buddies, partly out of jealousy that they can shoot FA and carry in a bar.
ReplyDeleteAs for hippies, I recall a bumper sticker I saw during my first sojourn at Ft Lewis, which rad "I'm not a hippy, I'm just a well-groomed Mountain Man!"
Sig: I was born in Portland.
ReplyDeleteDon't try to tell me how to pronounce Orygun.
A friend went into the FBI in 2002. His first assignment was drugs in Portland.
ReplyDeleteThe place was, and likely still is, full of meth and meth heads.
Many look like hippies, but are quite a bit - different - in their outlook upon the world.
Act accordingly.
Meth use is waning (sudafed now requires a prescription), but heroin use is on the rise (mexican cartels taking advantage of lax local laws).
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