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In this Discussion
- 1234 July 2011
- Death July 2011
- ed_chigliak July 2011
- Leland July 2011
- Loose_Thread July 2011
- Matthew July 2011
- MirandaJuly July 2011
- UncleBoatShoes2011 July 2011
- YoursTruly July 2011
Comments
not going to lie
it's a cool place, but is pretty far off from the unreasonable story I had for myself in my head.
Now it's Nashville, Athens GA, and Stockholm
We went there once as tourists and found that the crummy tourist zone is INCREDIBLY isolated, like there is literally a freeway cutting it off from where the black people live, and then on the other side there is just this weird indefinable line after which the tourists simply don't go. It is surreal. We walked around the non-tourist area (belying what I just said, I guess, about how tourists don't go there, but whatever) and it was FUCKING KIND. Amazing neighborhoods, not ritzy, everyone having cool tropical plants and balconies and kind coffee shops, and the ocean right there.
Cons:
- we all now understand what happens when you live below sea level, sometimes, gnarly
- THE HEAT IS UNBEARABLE for like half the year
Friends ride bicycles everywhere. Pretty in love with the local music culture, etc. Streetview city crush.
@LG Care to share more about the distance between your idealized Portland and the one you've found? Any specific scenes?
I've been visiting North Portland frequently over recent months. I've started to feel like I know something about it even though I feel like I've been too private and hermit-y for a real view.
The food culture is intense and the hangoutliness seems vigorous and widespread. But I'm not the best hangout-er. I get cranky and fidgety like it is time to do something else.
All the bicycles make me happy, except I worry about them on the narrow streets. (I'm looking at you Alberta.)
Ha! Sorry for being a neurotic nutbag UHX. Please go ahead and enjoy your town.
Alberta is the local strip where I've been staying. I went to the Last Thursday event in June and was pretty impressed by the scale and diverse energy of the mob. It felt like a healthy, well run anarchy street market party and that made me feel good about people. Planning to make it back this week.
Things I liked learning about from my recent Portland zones:
Well, I'm pretty into Mississippi Records.
And I like the bar/park situation around the Red Fox.
The Waypost felt friendly.
I liked running into Weston at The Red E.
In my mind UncleBoatShoes spends all his days and nights at the pergola in the rose garden at Peninsula Park. I often think of heading over there to check on him.
I'm getting past my ignorance of P-town's ethnic diversities and digging on its contributions to the human struggle.
Wow, BigMac's boathouse and the figure eight Google made to direct me to it.
There are lots more. I'm always liking something.
Of society!
I just watched a movie about "dropping out." It was from 1985 by Albert Brooks called Lost in America.
I just was in New Orleans for the first time!
What is the current local music culture in NO? I know about rap music. I know about fake jazz. I know about Quintron and Miss Pussycat. Is there still real jazz? I know about Bon Jovi covers on Bourbon street.
@DrJ
way to keep it real.
there are still the actual old dudes playing at preservation hall, dudes who as kids played with Jelly Roll Morton or whatever. Or their dads did, or something. Old-school New Orleans jazz. But is this real or fake? I think of fake jazz as, like, Kenny G and Grover Washington, or even Wynton Marsalis's somewhat bullshit Lincoln Center programs, even though he's just playing traditional jazz there's something grotesque about it in that context by that man.
To me "real jazz" means both the traditional big-bandy vibe of turn-of-the-century NoLo as well as the more experimental stuff of a Coltrane or a Davis or a Coleman...
What do you think? Is there a different way to think of fake jazz?
there is also admittedly a lot of live, hokey "bluesy jazz" being played in the shitty bars in the French Quarter, which I think of as "fake jazz" also, but I'm not sure why--I mean, I wouldn't be willing to write up a scholarly article on it, that's for sure. Just gives me a gross taste in my mouth.
I do admit it is weird to go to the ULTRA TOURIST HOTSPOT of fucking Preservation Hall and to sit there with a bunch of white people and their squalling offspring, taking digital photos and oohing and aahing at the tired old trumpet-muting show-offy tricks as ancient black men play standards...but, at the same time, those are kind of the "real dudes" of NoLo jazz, one generation removed, and they're playing originals...so while the vibe/atmosphere/museum-quality preservation style/location (bourbon street! ugh) feels ultra-fake, the music itself is actually the preserved real thing, so how do you talk about it. ME NO KNOW
It's like, a Schubert piano trio isn't "fake" just because it's super old and being performed on modern instruments by young millionaire performers, right? But it's also not "a living music." It's weird
maybe you meant a wholly other categorizing process in which case I apologize
I was wrong to even ask if there is "real jazz," there totally is.
Bourbon street amazed me at how insane it was not during mardi gras on some like wednesday night or whatever it was when we were there.
"Living music" is such a fascinating thing. Non-living musics can make you feel so many things (positive and negative). Punks not dead. Old Tyme is a crime. FakeJazz.
“Camp” is popular because it gives people a sense of reality to see a replay of their lives.
I don't anything about music, I'm just thinking of "Legacy Cultures" that continue to exist long after their time.
My friends seem to think there are numerous occasions where danceable, funky marching bands roam through various neighborhoods. People come out of their houses with instruments. World famous fests, but also microfests. That's the picture they painted.
When we Google-prowled Algiers, Helen pointed out the rows of big barns along the levy where the Mardi Gras floats are built. It seemed special to tie up that much real estate for a big crazy folk parade. New Orleans-based mythologies were giving me maybe-America-has-a-chance-after-all feelings. It was nice.
Yes, people connections and interior conditions trump places.
Yes, Lost in America. Good suggestion!
Ha! Just thinking that much of my recent impression of Portland has come from my friend's block, how she's friends with the family of drug dealers across the street. They are very public and very busy all the time. A tad dysfunctional but very polite and generous about the neighborly things like returning the hedge clippers or giving an opinion about whether an engine rattle is serious. Their roots are deep on the block, deeper than many folks with tidier houses and lawns. There are always a few people on the porch at their house and so now passing by to my friend's house is always the occasion for a nod or a wave. The tidy house people haven't become involved in my coming and goings.
Maybe all cities are street clubs like this and I just never tuned in to these channels of communication before. Maybe it's that my Portland friend is very social so it seems like Portland people know more about their neighbor's business and backstories than I'm used to. Anyhow, this is part of how my Portland is.
Also fire pits in every one's back yards.
I guess Galactic is part of that. I see they work with ANTI. I don't want to like Galactic. I'm feeling pro-funk but jam-band adverse. It's complicated. I don't know their work. Is it any good? I was introduced to them at the wrong time. Have they ever had a UHX SOTD?
Also, bounce. (The title of Big Freedia's musical autobiography is "Catch That Beat".)
but that album Ya Ka May is my only exposure to the band Galactic.
(rad back history of the dish Ya ka May in the recent debut issue of Lucky Peach)
WOAH WARNING! VIDEO IS Not exactly SFW I never realized there was a video till now and...
bounce videos are usually fairly butt-centric but this....how have I never seen this before?
Were there butts in that video? They must have been disguised.
Hail! The ancient headwaters of southern California's civilization of leisure.