Things I won't miss about Portland

Anonymous asked: What do you think of Brooklyn? I was born and raised in NYC and currently live in Bed-Stuy. Brooklyn has turned into another version of Portland....

I love Brooklyn. I live in Bushwick right now, and I think the thing is that there is a more reasonable “normal person” to “weirdo” ratio here. It was also a few month before I saw a tall bike, I almost blissfully forgot what one looked like! Portland drove me crazy because it was like a “trying too hard to be weird arms race”, I don’t really see that here. It’s a lot more subtle here IMO. Less hippies too, which is always a plus.

Anonymous asked: I live in Portland can I continue your blog?

No.

Start your own blog.

This was started so I wouldn’t strangle random people before I had a chance to move to Brooklyn. It would be really weird if you were to continue it. You can start a similar blog, but you can’t have my baby.

I moved!

Hey everyone, thanks for following, but I will no longer be updating this blog. I saved up some money and moved to Brooklyn, so I have no reason to write this any more.

Best,

Eddie

i moved here before YOU moved here

“man, all these new people are moving here, and making it less cool and shit”

“oh yeah. i know what you mean. when did you move here?”

“last march. but since then stuff started to suck. and everything’s getting really gentrified.”

wait wait wait, hold up- ok, i’m a transplant and i moved here originally in 2000 with some coming and going. and when i moved here in 2000 everyone who moved here in 1997 scoffed at me and said, “oh, you are part of the new wave of annoying kids from little towns trying to change our city” and i was like “whatever, I’m just happy to be in a place where people don’t yell ‘freak!’ at me from their car window because i have blue hair.” well times have changed and now I’m old and boring, and it’s my turn to scoff at YOU. YOU who moved here after 2007, and even more so, you who moved here a few months ago. YOU are changing everything. YOU are the reason that north/northeast Portland are now filled with generic replicas of the same “independent” coffee shop staffed by skinny white dudes with full sleeve tattoos they probably picked out of a book, plaid western shirts, listening to wu-tang clan as they make you your $8 latte. Yeah, I bet you think thats cool right? Well I remember 2003, when there was a punk house show every night of the week and it was easy to live off of $1 coffee and dumpstered pizza. so fuck you, because its all YOUR fault. you don’t even know.

Lets be real here, people don’t often last long in Portland, but the first six months someone lives in Portland is their cockiest time here, their time with the most ownership. if you want to interrupt me because you have something to say about the gentrification of N Williams that I’m just not up on, cool, thanks for showing off the attention to detail you spend on Portland geography, I’m already at the point where i know that things are changing, here and everywhere, and there’s no stopping it and my white college educated former punk self is more a part of the problem then of the solution, and rolling my eyes at everyone who moved here after me is not me doing something important. meet me there five years from now, when you are sick of the rain and the underemployment too.

Reader Submitted

YES! Great job Korr!

Anonymous asked: I just want to say, as a fellow Portland native, that one of the things that bugs me about Portland (besides transplants complaining about Portlanders LIKE I'M NOT STANDING RIGHT HERE) is that it's 20% non-white, but white people frequently complain about how white Portland is. Once again, HELLO I'M STANDING RIGHT HERE. Portlandia is filmed in N and NE Portland, where most of us non-white Portland people live, yet manages to somehow make it look like we don't exist. I think Portlandia represents how white people see Portland, and what it reveals to me is that they can't really see us. Even though 2 out of 10 Portlanders is brown. I had a conversation in Mississippi Pizza with someone a few weeks ago, and they were talking about how white Portland is, and I looked around the bar and about 1/3rd of the patrons (including myself) were darker-skinned, and I was like, wut? Really? Right in front of everybody, he's discounting them? Or maybe he just can't tell because all hipsters look alike to him... whatever a hipster even IS.

Woah, this is great! This is whole box of gold stars AND a “grape job” sticker good! please write more!

scratchitback-deactivated201303 asked: As a fellow Portlander with a California license plate, am I in any sort of danger?

This is a great question, thanks for asking! Short answer, no. But there’s something that I, personally have always hated about the California license plate, it just seems so bitchy. Like, the red cursive letters always make me think a shitty valley girl wrote it on her license plate with lipstick or something. “CAL-I-FORNIA!” You know? I think the DMV wants you to change it pretty quickly too, not sure if there is a fine, but be careful. I have to say, I try really hard not to hate on that plate, but for some dumb, irrational reason, I really don’t like it. I think it’s kinda funny because the traditional Oregonian license plate has always seemed super masculine and… “loggery” to me. Do whatever you like with that info… haha. Best of luck, Eddie

I don’t hate transplants

I don’t. I want to make that super clear. Probably 85% of my friends are from somewhere else, and that’s awesome, I love them to pieces and I honestly wouldn’t want them to live anywhere else, they bring A LOT to this city. I didn’t start this blog to be some sort of “I hate transplants to Oregon” thing, that’d be stupid. I just like to make fun of shit that I think is dumb, but I’m also not trying to be the anti-transplants posterboy. I love Oregon, I was born here and I grew up outside of Portland, I really think it’s a fucking awesome state and I’m proud to be from here. I also like to joke about hating on California(though I’m kiiiinda serious sometimes), but I really love my friends from California.

I think though, the thing that people often miss is how small and isolated Portland/Oregon/The Pacific Northwest was until not too long ago. It really was mostly loggers and farmers not too long ago. I grew up hearing about a lot of cities in the national media and Portland was never one of them. Even the Pacific NW in general didn’t get a lot of national attention or really any space in the national consciousness, until the mid nineties. Grunge, and Twin Peaks changed that. Kurt Cobain was a hero to a kid like me(I was 10 in 1994) for many reasons, but for me, a big part of it was that he was kinda like me, some poor white trash kid from some part of the country that nobody had ever heard of or given a fuck about.  Families on TV were from California, or the East Coast, or the South, or various places in the Midwest, but nobody, ever, was from the Pacific Northwest. Definitely nobody cool either.

But, in the last 20 years that’s changed. A lot. I’m still kinda stunned when I hear someone walking down the street and I can tell that they are from Europe or Japan or somewhere cool or exotic. I kinda can’t believe that people from the rest of the world come here. To Portland?! I like it, but it kinda weirds me out. I feel kinda protective too, though this usually just gets quickly dismissed by calling it “xenophobia”, and I think that’s part of the problem; not listening to the people who were here first. If we’re going to share, please just don’t be overbearing and pretend like we aren’t here, and our concerns for this city aren’t also as valid as yours. That’s where the anti-transplant attitude comes from, when people talk shit about Oregon or Portland as if EVERYONE is from somewhere else. That’s rude. C’mon. You’d totally fucking hate that too. Of course there are cranks who won’t be happy with any change, and not all change is bad, but let’s maybe try and balance out the dialogue a bit? Just make sure you’re as respectful as you’d want someone to be towards your hometown. And remember we’re very protective and respectful towards our town. Simple.

Finally, I think people need to understand that Portland, Oregon, and the Pacific Northwest in general, was like that girl in those shitty teen movies that nobody ever asks out because she wears glasses and has her hair in a bun, and then somebody gives her a makeover and everyone suddenly wants to take her out and be nice to her. We’re a little suspicious, like, what exactly do you want? Can you blame us? Only 20 years ago no one gave a half a fuck about Portland and suddenly we’re a destination city? Tourists come here? Whaaa?! New York has a huge boner for us? New York, New York? The people who can’t even pronounce our state correctly? (Don’t get me fucking started on that one, the ONLY state in all 50 states that gets routinely mispronounced, think about that for a minute…) Please forgive us if we’re a little standoffish or suspicious, we don’t hate you, we like you, but nobody has ever though we were cool before; except for us.

People who use their horn

You don’t use your horn here. It’s just not done. It’s like cussing in front of old people, you can do it, but you’re a huge dick if you do. The only time you’re supposed to use your horn is when you’re letting someone know that the light has changed. Never any other time. This is standard Oregonian custom, it’s like saying “Sir” and “Ma’am” in parts of the South; it’s just how things are done here. Please respect this. Thanks.

greendeva3 asked: MFP= My Father's Place?

Of course!

Anonymous asked: Hello my name's Alanna and I am working on a screenplay project called Locals Only as my way of giving the finger to most people who've moved here. I am a native of the Sellwood area and just discovered your blog through my sister; as part of the scenario of the story, there is a bar that only caters to locals from a certain time period. This means a Q and A is invoked to letting people in; in my writing, I am using pieces of trivia known only to the to Sellwood residents. Where did you reside?

I live in the Hollywood district, but I grew up in Beavercreek mostly. I don’t know much about Sellwood, sorry.