She was my affair with Portland

and even though the morning afternoon and evening held sunshine sweet sunshine
oh lord the nights were demons in my belly
and i walked on creaky wooden floors
in my footsnuggies and sweatpants
wondering
wondering
where is my mind
where
is
my
mind

What it is

Drinking my favorite Honey Dew tea in the dungeon thinking about home births and bike rides. yesterday i biked aimlessly and ended up near Powell Butte. The path seems to lead straight to snow capped mount hood .. i waved and stared until the sky turned that shade of purple streaked with fading white and light blue that heralds the death of another day and the onset of a starry night. Portland is indeed a very beautiful city. right by the entrance to the butte I saw a small group of goats chewing on stuff. Three horses swished their tails nearby and rabbits chased each other in the tall grass. a tiny salamander wiggled its way cautiously across the bike path toward me. It held real still as i crouched a few feet away and we both listened to the birds calling each other out to dinner ... or whatever birds call that last meal before the sun sets and cats come out to play.

In the back yard the fading scent of raccoon keeps libberz the akita-sheperd pacing back and forth. She licks her chops and tried to look bored, but she places herself right between the cherry tree and the doug fir in the back yard. thats where the weak link is for tree-climbing rodents. The branches of the two trees reach toward each other but there is a good ten foot gap for libberz to exploit when squirrels try and make the dangerous run from conifer to berry.

One of these days, i'll be sitting out in the backyard pretending not to be eyeing up a squirrel and when he makes the dash, me and libberz will sprint to the base of the cherry tree and catch the little bastard just before he makes it. We'll get his ass.

its time to go camping again with someone who knows when to keep quiet so i can sit somewhere and spread all my senses out and try and melt into the forest never to return as a human, but as a wolf slowly unremembering days on two feet.

What sammy said last night

I need to record this fool, kinda like my Native-Black-Polack-Commie homeboy Charlie.

Last night Sammy came back from the mini mart and said:

"dude, mini-marts are like bugzappers for lunatics. And in our neighborhood, there be lotsa lunatics."

its true. If you hang out all day at the minimarts you'll see people surviving/thriving offa deep fried garbage and snacks. In fact, i am guilty. i am a lunatic. i get zapped. i be eatin $1.49 packs of tortillas with the eggs i steal from Nicole's chicken coop. but recently i have been bleesed cuz Nikki and Sammy decided to bury the hatchet with quiche and salad. two days in a row. so now i eat good. if they keep fighting and making up, i'll keep moderating and fillin my belly.

I like that "feelin it" style

thats what my boy grant said to me a long time ago while we were in his dj dungeon listening to a little known dj named Fresh who was juggling some funk. man i started gettin up and groovin. at the time (and even now) djs were into that technically ridiculous style.

but i've always loved that feelin it style

and i am feelin portland these days. i been out and about the past few days checkin out sites for the tea house and doing other things and i have seen a lot of beautiful women, which is nice, and a lot of friendly peeps, which is also nice. but there are also a whole legion of bums ranging from drunk crackers to tattooed outcasts to colorful crazy women to the black and indian nation. i give smokes when i got em, flash coins if they jinglin and i always stop and bullshit for a while to let me and them know we're all still human.

its as much as i can do. preaching all of this "one love" here in the blog i have to pull it into my lifestyle or all goes wrong.

as for the tea biz, the "first transport is away" as geeks would say. The loan application is in and i now await word from the duplicitous stingy bankers who once threw cash around (when rates were high) but now say its too tough (cuz rates is low) and that is basically how it is done. Wish me luck, all 6 of you cats out there who read this.

feelin it
yeahyeah
feelin it
in the mornin when libberz comes to wake me up
feelin it
in the noontime with a smoke and a cup
still feelin it
i got my music wherever i go
i keep feelin it
no matter how low it gets
how dark it gets
its so easy to keep
feelin it
yeahyeah
feelin it
i betchu ya'll feel it too
cuz i be feelin it

Tea with Amy

My senses
jostle for pole position in my brain
various species of dew
brimstone, lilacs and porcelain
i look up at a sunny Portland sky
and it smells like rain
i envy my senses
as they compete in vain
then i close my eyes
and see everything

I got emeralds in my cup

When o when will the weather cease to drive me down into my dungeon? Its hailing outside right now. And its got that dank and dreary grey vibe that just warns ya: "if u go out, the sky can see you. and it will MAKE U PAY!"

In the News?

Phish is back. Long live the parking lot.

China vs. Portland

In Portland, cars will stop on a busy street and let pedestrians cross. Even with a whole line of cars behind them. The pedestrian then turns to the car, nods or waves, receives a nod in return and life goes on. This is not law. It is just how people do here in Portland.

When you walk down the street and pass someone, i would say about 75% of the time there is a mutual greeting. Respect and consideration is shown as much as possible.

In China crossing the street is like playing Frogger, with sentient cars trying to hit you. Cars will roll into a crosswalk and nose their way through, as the pedestrians kinda flow around. There are no traffic laws that are obeyed. Its just, see an opening and go. Or make an opening and go.

In China, if you greet someone, they will be surprised and non-plussed at first, but then will engage in a spirited conversation. People are happier in China if you show some respect, because it is not expected.

People get irate in the US if you do not show respect.

I think scale has a lot to do with these differences. If the streets of Portland were ALWAYS crowded with people, then I think consideration would take a back seat to expedience. People in China are extremely civilized in their own homes, but completely disdainful of the public area. If everyone in China were considerate and thoughtful while out on the town, there would be no time to do anything else but be polite to every person who crosses your path.

And this issue of scale also has a lot to do with the general air and water quality differences. In Oregon, you can pretty much see the stars all the time, the moon can light your way to anywhere and the sunrises hurt my eyes.

In China, you have to go to Tibet or Xinjiang to have that experience. Or deep into the countryside. There are Chinese villages, unknown and wallowing in some warped, stretched time-zone with TVs, nightsoil, cell phones and buffalo-operated tills, that have more people than the Greater Portland area.

In Oregon, I can go 30 minutes outside of the city and pick wild mushrooms and run from rutting young elk.

Wild animals in China lurk in the shadows or become a "protected delicacy."

And of course the absolute disregard for commoners shown by the "leaders" in China kind of sets an example. Which is another HUGE difference. There are phalanxes of unfriendly class-conscious older women protecting the halls of Chinese government buildings from unwanted commoners. They are backed up by commoners in military uniforms standing at every gate.

Here in Portland, the government is quite accessible. They answer phones, emails and blog posts. Here, everyone is entitled to respect and if a leader refuses to show it, he will be charged with elitism and thrown out of whatever office he holds.

This is of course the beautiful American sentiment that McCain hopes to capitalize upon. He believes there are enough ignorant people out there who fear and hate "the elite" to vote him into office. Hence Palin. It kinda backfired on him in Lakeville, MN when a particularly dumb woman said,"I dont trust Obama because he is an A-Rab."

Interesting similarities, interesting differences.

Live and Let Die?

Imagine you are at a Texas Hold-Em table and a very rich banker steps up with a collection of cash from all corners of his derivative-laced empire. He bets hard on a 6-3 unsuited (bad bad hand) and loses it ALL.

And then, because his losses would mean he can't play anymore, he asks everyone else at the table to bail him out. Would anyone do it?

Imagine for a second that Company X is facing some liquidity issues and needs to tighten its belt for a while to get things flowing again. What is the very first thing Company X would do? Lay off workers. Company X would not think twice about putting 25 year vets of the company out on the street to fend for themselves in order to "keep the company competitive." It hurts to be on the other end of things ...

Now all of these big investors and bankers are telling the average Joe that, if he doesn't pony up for the Wall Street gamblers that lost their cash, then credit flows will halt, bringing the economy to a standstill. Because bankers are too scared to lend in a dangerous environment. Not because there is no credit, or because they are forbidden or unable to lend, but because it is TOO RISKY for them to lend in this volatile environment.

ie it is too risky for the thief to rob when the cops are out and about, but it wasn't too risky to lend when the cops were absent. Now that the bankers have been "caught" they don't want to lend. But they were happy to when risk was "someone else's responsibility."

An economist, naturally, will tell me I am simple minded and don't understand the intricacies of finance, or the global implications of Wall Street's collapse.

Well I actually have read a bit of Adam Smith and Max Weber and, according to these pillars of our so-called free market capitalist system, Wall Street must die. In a free economy, the Fed has no place, bailouts are anathema and those who gamble on unsuited 6-3 hands are doomed to fall by the wayside AND BE BOUGHT UP by those who did not bet on crazy risky ridiculous hands.

And the taxpayer who bet hard that his credit card would always be there for him, that his double mortgage on a house WAY out of his league would be -- eventually -- paid for by the magic hand of appreciation must also suffer the consequences.

It is easy for me to say all of this, because i don't have a credit card and i have earned my pithy cash on a freelance basis for most of my life. But i don't buy expensive things and i always have enough to get by, because i know that a bad bet on my part means homelessness. So i watch my ass. And i guess i believe that medicine that works probably tastes like shit. In the end, a live and let die approach to the US economy would result in a stronger economy. And the years in between -- well I moved here because i am ready to grow cabbage in my backyard with all the rest of the Americans. I could have easily stayed in China and avoided all of this ...

Anyway.

An economy such as ours today is not unprecedented. Read people, and see that the 1920s only had different fashion, different toys, different slang ... for years people have been telling us that living above our means, charging everything and so on will come back to bite us. And now it has. But no one -- least of all the bankers and traders and financiers who made it all possible -- wants to bite the bullet.

Chinese are known for saving their cash and living way BELOW their means (well most of them anyway, of course the whole nouveau rich dont apply). Here in Portland Intel has a big R&D center staffed with a grip of Indians. These kids make 100k a year, live four to a room, eat at home, drive Civics and send their money home to mama. Not too cool, right? but pretty damn smart, no?

China sent a planeload of cash -- a plane load of cash -- to Seattle to buy planes and another to South Africa to buy a stake in a bank. When is the last time a business in the US paid for something with a big pile of cash? Economists say business aint possible unless you have credit ... true, cuz ya aint got no money in the bank ...

Now i see late night scam-ads telling people: sell yer "worthless" gold and get cold hard cash. HAHAHAHA. oh jesus. sell gold for "cold hard cash."

This happened once before, when FDR told everyone in the US to hand over their gold. The only difference between the 1920s and 1930s and now is the slang, the medium and the face ...

History is meaningless to those who pay no attention to it, it holds all meaning for those who do ...

Serendipity

I have been talkin about getting portland and china together for a long time on this blog, and look what Mayor Adams is up to RIGHT NOW ... its pretty exciting. Too bad he isn't coming to Chengdu ...