The neighborhood billboard of free speech

I love this billboard assembly, traveling by car, its right as you come off the Fremont Bridge and plunge into the series of ridiculous stop-sign intersections that lead you from the freeway into the tiny streets of NE Portland.
Its a huge ass billboard, accessible from ground level, at a major intersection, ripe for vandalism. It somehow manages to attract awesome tags like the ones above instead of the silly lil' gangbanger bullshit that seems to permeate the city.
Here's a couple other shots of the same billboard during the summer of '08. These two stood side-by-side all summer long.
Pics borrowed from "The Impression That I Get's" photostream.



Update: Looking through old pictures, I found another one from the spring of '07.

"Adios Coliseum," or "My Change of Heart about Mayor Sam."

Or, "My disjointed off the cuff reaction to news of the the plans to demolish Memorial Coliseum and build a Sports and Wine Disneyland."

Three years of Mayor Potter's silly tantrums and total lack of vision made me anxious for a regime change in Portland City Hall.
Anxious enough that I drove around the city one Sunday morning last year to put up your signs, but your disorganized campaign people sent us on a wild goose chase to houses that already had signs in the yard.
I was a little discouraged, but I really believed we were on the same page, it seemed we shared a lot of the same visions for the city. Even though I knew you had never done anything other than "politic" since before you entered the workforce, somehow I believed that you were above most of the bullshit and would stand up to the things I assumed you also found repulsive.
I rallied behind you when news of the "incident" broke. I defended you to co-workers and even tried real hard to convince my partner that you were still exactly what the city needed, and eventually everyone will realize that this "scandal" is overblown and ridiculous and city business will continue as usual after it all blows over.
Four months later, here we are, we've got a 12 lane bridge to funnel Vancouverites into the city and now my neighborhood is going to be a theme park for suburban sports fans.
Its now clear that I was mistaken about our shared vision for the city. I now find myself hoping that the current economic climate will slow growth enough that your fucked up visions for the city will never come to fruition. Are these really your ideas, or are you just unable to wield any real authority anymore?

More Street Blade Madness

A few weeks ago I posted about Portland's new street sign designs, tipped off by a fellow blogger who is also prone to geek out about things like road signs. I hadn't actually seen one of the new ones in person until Thursday when I had to go to drop off some t-shirts at Bridgeport Brewing. I didn't have the camera in tow at that moment, but just happened to pass through this area again today on a long walk around the city.


This has been an area of heavy construction for the past few years. Construction on the new high-rise condos are finally finished on this block, folks are moving in, and new street signs are going up.
It seems another street blade re-write is in order. You makin' a list ZehnKatzen?
In a perfect world, Portland's Alphabet District, so named because the east/west streets are named in alphabetical order from Ankeny to York*, should be relatively intuitive. Laid out in quadrants, Portland just makes sense, so it makes sense that the 1300 block of 12th ave should occur after crossing the street named after the 13th letter of the alphabet. The city sign shop even gets it.
However, in the real world, we do things differently. In Portland, we start counting at Burnside, not Ankeny, and we always have a block of two-digit addresses before we get into the 100's. I assume this is how this sign came to be. The real 1300 block is between Overton and Pettygrove Streets.
On a side note, if anyone from the city happens upon this post and is thinking, "hmm, maybe we should hire a fact-checker," I'm available nights and weekends, perhaps even full time if the price is right. Just sayin'.

*Roosevelt St. is a total cop out. Wasn't there at least one guy in town named Xavier to name this street after?

A minivan you can't refuse

This thing is perpetually parked just north of Hawthorne on 16th. Not sure about the back story, but the van pretty much speaks for itself.

PDX Lost & Found

No, not at the airport, Graham's blog.
Mostly Portland history, but he's only got a couple posts up so far, so we'll see where it goes.

From the Portland Streets

On a long walk in SE last weekend, I spotted this first generation Plymouth Valiant. Built somewhere between '60-'62, this one still looks pretty pristine, considering it sports Alaska plates.

In the story I've made up about this car, its driven daily by one of the sisters from the nearby convent. In the top left of the picture is the front archway of the Sisters of Reparation of the Sacred Wounds of Jesus.

The rear is pretty interesting. The car definitely has a lot of personality. Those brake lights are like condescending eyes, and that tire cover...

Love this front grille emblem. That logo is more fitting for a pack of cigarettes, or maybe a brand of gum.

Made in Oregon

Via Matt Davis

D'oh!

The City of Portland has recently been upgrading many street signs, especially out in the far east areas of the city. It seems to be a bit of a hasty job though, as per this pic from ZehnKatzen Times.


If you're a Portlander who pays attention, you'll immediately realize what's wrong with this sign. For the rest of you, Stark St. never enters NE Portland, as the NE 148th sign suggests. It just can't be! Anyone got a big green-out pen?

Sassy Jack's

I finally made it back to my old "Cheers bar" over the weekend. I used to live three blocks from Sassy Jack's Pub in Montavilla, but moved out of the neighborhood about four years ago.
I started going there with my housemate soon after it opened, they took over a sketchy meth-den bar that I had only stepped foot in once. The new owners gave the place a lot of love and made it a quirky little bar with cheap beers and homemade mid-western food.
(SOS Monday, Hell yeah!)
I've only been back there a handful of times since then. Montavilla is off my usual path anymore, and the place was really smokey until the smoking ban. Now the place is all aired out and expanded with more pool tables and more room for dancing on weekend nights when they have a live band.

The mural of all the original regulars, with unfortunate flash blowout.

Oregarus and I still hold our positions in the upstairs windows.

From The Portland Streets

A 1990-ish Dodge Monaco, a rebadged Eagle Premier, designed in France, built in Canada, sold in the US. I haven't seen one of these in years. Very few were ever sold in the first place, so stumbling upon one parked on the city streets is kinda rare.

Seems to have been abandoned here since January, or maybe they just keep the chains on, "just in case."

They only made these for a couple years in the early '90's. Seems I remember it being rated the most unreliable car sold in America at the time. Still, there's something I love about it.

Random phone pics

Bathroom chalkboard at the Mash Tun, in praise of the Zombies. This picture was taken ages ago.

Bizarre fruit box. Grizzled prospector firing a gun that shoots oranges? wtf?

Drawn in the grime on the back of a truck making a delivery at work. Reminds me that I need to go toss a few, brush up my skills, and actually make a trip out to McIver soon.

Retro cereal boxes

At Target, and perhaps a few other stores, General Mills have rolled out these reproduction cereal boxes. Pretty cool. Somehow that box makes me crave Lucky Charms, even though I hated them when I was a kid. What's up with that?

From the Portland Streets

This poor little Sube met its fate parked along Williams Ave just up the street from la casa. Sad to see a smashed up Impreza, even if it is that horrible 1990's teal.

"As if"

The Oregon Income Tax instruction booklet explains how the state recognizes your partnership for tax purposes.

Registered domestic partners (RDPs): To correctly
determine your Oregon tax liability, you must complete
a federal income tax return “as if” you were
married filing jointly or married filing separately. Use
the information you calculated on the “as if” federal
return to complete your Oregon income tax return,
unless otherwise indicated.

You have to figure out your federal taxes twice, one copy, the one where you file as single, you actually file to the IRS. The second copy (or as the Oregon Department of Revenue quite amusingly calls it, the "As if" copy) is the version where you get to pretend the federal government considers you a full citizen. You figure out how much you'd save by filing jointly, then use that information to fill out your state forms.

Domestic Partnerships are cool, I'm glad I'm in a place where there's that option. However taxes are just one of the instances where it becomes glaringly obvious that the whole idea is still a "separate but equal" compromise. That, and that handy list of "RDP's" that'll make it easier to round up the queers when the time comes. (Sorry, just a little conspiracy theory freakout.)
There's so many more issues that are so much more important to me, I really wish the polarizing push for "marriage" could just take a back seat for a little while while we fix the really big things, like equal legal protection for gays in that huge chunk of the country where one can still be fired or lose their apartment for being gay. Yeah, that would be a nice start...

Cat Kid

24 February
Cat Kid Update:
I saw them spare changing on the corner of MLK and Broadway this afternoon. Near where I usually spot him walking, but I've never seen him with a sign before. Poor Cat Kid. I've never given anything to a "spanger" before, but now I really want to keep a can of tuna in the truck for the next time I see him. That fine beast needs to eat.


I've seen you twice now walking around NE with that awesome cat on your shoulder like a parrot or a ferret. The first time I spotted you I was on bike, and almost turned around to say "Hi" and pet your cat. Today, sitting in traffic at Broadway & Grand, I spotted you with enough time to whip out the phone and take blurry pictures.