Portland

An update about life in the Rose city

(A column that fell behind my desk that I forgot about)

                                              Photo by Amber Kipp on Unsplash

This is aweekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.   

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional meltdown.  

About

Glossary 

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlereader  

"I remember when I was a student at the Sorbonne in Paris, I used to got out and riot occasionally." -John Foster Dulles 

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),

Not long ago I was doing research (net surfing) for a column that was about a) whatever happened Black Lives Matter and b) how did they spend the $90,000,000 or so they received in donations in 2020, a year that will forever be (in?)famous for the phrase mostly peaceful protests. 

But this column isn't about that, so...

I stumbled on a news story about recent goings-on in Portland, Oregon. Way back in 2020 there were so many not so peaceful protests going on there that the website of local tv station KGW8 — which I checked daily for updates at the time — had a button at the top of the page that would take you right to the latest not so peaceful protest news.

Let me be clear...

{A phrase that's clearly a cliche.} 

Thanks for sharing, Dana. The near-daily violence back then was allegedly perpetrated by Antifa, not BLM. In fact, less than 6% of the city's population is black. They seem to have a diversity problem. 

But as Uncle Joe memorably pointed out when he debated the Donald (also way back in 2020) Antifa isn't an organization, it's an idea. 

So all we know for sure is that a group of ideas that prefer basic black outfits and are partial to glass breaking, spray painting, and setting things on fire generated a lot of press coverage last year. 

I was reminded of this when I discovered that not long ago these ideas somebody rioted and managed to do $500,000 worth of damage to 35 Portland businesses in one night, and I had missed it.  

This happened on 10/12/21 but all of the news stories I found blamed anarchists, or mere activists, and didn't mention Antifa, including my old friends at KGW8. I thought that perhaps the merry band of ideas had evaporated, morphed into anarchists/activists, or moved on.   

But me being me I kept going and a bit more research revealed several things. 

Antifa still exists, fights among rival groups and/or riots are fairly common occurrences in Portland, and some local news outlets covering the same incident will mention Antifa but others will not. 

Finally, current national coverage of any given riot or brawl in Portland is fleeting to nonexistent, which is why I lost track of life in Portland. I mean, how much news can any one person follow? 

I'm sure you understand what I'm talking about, and may even have a theory as to why certain former news stories, that are still a thing, no longer receive much if any national coverage that a half a minute ago were a certified RBFD. 

But this column isn't about that, so...

I checked out all sorts of websites, and related videos. 

From what I can tell, on any given day in Portland, mobs of Antifians, Proud Persons, activists, anarchists, etceterists might be running amok in the Rose City (ain't that an ironical nickname) breaking or burning things (or each other). 

I watched more than one video featuring a greedy capitalist pig (small business owner) decrying how this hurts profits and Portland's reputation, which brings us to what this column is about. 

{Fingers crossed, gentlereaders!}

 

Portland, a.k.a. Wokieburg, should turn lemons into lemonade by capitalizing on its international reputation as a home for Fringies of the alt-left, and to a lesser extent, the alt-right. 

Select an area that includes a police station, a government building of some sort, and a handful of small businesses. Ideally, it should include at least one (inter)nationally known retail business, and some residences. 

Next, use eminent domain to buy out the owners, take possession, and then rent out all locations to those who wish to stay, or replace them with someone who does, and then hire a project manager or request bids from firms willing to do the job.

Use zoning to require that all glass must be made out of whatever it is they use in movies when someone(s) get tossed through a window. Also, require graffiti resistant building materials be used and that old graffiti be regularly scrubbed off so there's always room for fresh property defacement. 

Install several strategically located trash dumpsters, with locking wheels, in locations where they can be set ablaze with minimal threat to the surrounding area. 

Finally, make sure there's plenty of parking for tourists/tour busses and turn the urban blockheads and trousered apes loose. 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

P.S. All over America, there are hundreds of burned-out, formerly thriving Main Streets in towns where the citizenry never bothered to learn to code as their jobs were leaving town, headed for exotic Asian locales.

A local greedy capitalist pig (small businessperson) could duplicate my Portland concept, tweak it to suit local circumstances, and not have to pay franchise fees to anybody. 

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Feel free to comment and set me straight on Cranky's Facebook page. I post my latest columns on Saturdays, other things other days. Cranky don't tweet.         

Christmas in Flyoverland, 2021

Pronounced, fly-over-lund 

                                          Image by Nita Knott at pixy.org 

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.   

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional meltdown.  

About

Glossary 

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlereader  

"Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice." -Dave Barry

{Shouldn't that be their own way and the mall of his/her/their choice?}

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),

The good news is that two of the Stickies, the (formerly) evil step-twins (with help from Willamina, who's a sorta/kinda Sticky) have taken it upon themselves to hang Christmas lights all over the inside of the house this year. 

While I have bemoaned the paucity of exterior Christmas lighting here in Hooterville in previous Christmas columns, I have to admit that I'm a hypocrite. Casa de Chaos, as usual, has no exterior lighting. 

I'm too old, my son-in-law works six days a week to keep the wolf from our door (and that's enough), and my daughter acknowledges the fact she inherited her mom's gift for accidental self-injury, a disability her oldest stepdaughter, Asparagoose, has apparently inherited osmotically.  

The only Sticky I'd trust on a ladder lives elsewhere and is currently dealing with a deep-dip on the emotional roller coaster of he and his "partners" relationship. 

I doubt she'll read this, but I wish her and her's, a Merry Christmas anyway. 

{What's the bad news? Who are the (formerly) evil step-twins?}

The bad news is that all sorts of people in Mr. Cranky's neighborhood continue to believe that despite the wild temperature/barometric pressure fluctuations (and the occasional neighborhood miscreant) Northeast Ohio is subject to, this will be the year enormous, lighted, inflatable Christmas characters in their front yards will stay inflated for more than a day or two before collapsing.  

Whereupon they will set upon restoring them a couple, three times before giving up.

Mommy! Mommy! There's a giant dead and desiccated Santa Claus in Mrs. Mcgillicuddy's front yard! 

{You have to admire their, optimism?}

The (formerly) evil step-twins — don't call her Bug anymore, and Duuude — are now16. They...

{16! Are you sure? You must be even older than you ...}

Harumph! Everyone knows 68 is the new 39, Dana.

They met when they were barely two years old when Casa de Chaos was created out of two blended families. We briefly had to hire security so that mom could take an occasional nap without having to chain them to their... beds? Cribs? I can't remember.

Seemingly normal toddlers most of the time, if left alone for more than half a minute their souls would meld together and then be temporarily possessed by a nameless demon. 

For example, once, when mom was on the phone in the living room speaking to dad, who was on his lunch break at work, she got up to investigate the source of giggling and shrieking at the other end of the short hall that connects the front of the house to the back. 

The refrigerator door, the handle of which neither of them could reach, was open and they were running back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room and emptying out the contents of various containers, including ketchup, mustard, and the like on the kitchen and dining room, the carpeted dining room, floors.

Dad, literally left holding the phone, could hear mom screaming expressing her frustration and was about call 911 when she got back on the phone and explained it was just another day, love ya, gotta go. 

Fortunately time, and a do-it-yourself home exorcism kit from Home Depot, eventually solved the problem. 

{What's that got to do with Christmas?}

Nothing. But you asked and I realized that I don't think I've ever specifically mentioned the evil step-twin phenomenon in a column so I've recorded this story for my gentlereaders and posterity. Also, it was part of a devious plan to mention all of the founding members of Casa de Chaos in my annual Christmas column without anyone noticing. 

For the record, they're both fine now. She's a budding scholar, he's a budding weight lifter who will be starting tech school next year.

My room smells like Christmas smelled in my house in the late 50s/early 60s. 

I've been threatening to buy a bayberry candle for years, and, we had real Christmas trees in our house except for the time my old man brought home an aluminum one (but that's another story).

But now that I think about it... it seems unlikely we had bayberry scented candles when I was a kid. But to me, bayberry and pine are what Christmas smells like and since lived experience (as sometimes opposed to ones' actual experience) is a thing, I'm a stickin' to muh guns.

Anyways, my daughter and son-in-law surprised me with an early Christmas present, pine-scented and bayberry scented candles a few weeks ago. Merry Christmas to me...and to all my gentlereaders as well. 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

P.S. R.I.P. Michael Nesmith and Merry Christmas to my favorite lesbian. 

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Feel free to comment and set me straight on Cranky's Facebook page. I post my latest columns on Saturdays, other things other days. Cranky don't tweet.

Ohio

Collector's items on sale!

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay 

This is: A weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.   

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional meltdown. 

About

Glossary 

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlereader  

"You can't go into Youngstown, Ohio, and tell everybody they're going to be retrained and go work for Google or Apple." -Michael Avenatti

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders),

Ohio, temporarily my home state, and where I have lived for the past 35 years, recently was the subject...

{Given the undeniable fact you're old I'm guessing you weren't born there?} 

Correct, and as I clearly stated in another column, it's not Ohio, it's me.

{You're supposed to post a link to that column. I have it on good authority that's good search engine optimization (SEO). How do expect the Goog to find and offer up your column to some unsuspecting someone who's searching for some sort of information having something to do with say, Ohio, who turns out to be an internet "influencer," who will promote our brilliant work to his/her/their followers, whereupon, we will go viral and become rich and famous just like that?}

I've got a hooge (always try to link to another page on your website) problem with both the words our and brilliant work, but that aside, did you notice that the very title of this column is a word that all sorts of random users might have occasion to use, and that I not only repeated Ohio in the first sentence in bold, I've also re-repeated the word Ohio since, and now that you've got me thinking about it this would probably be a good place to link to content on another website (about SEO) which is also good for optimizing search engines, not just the Goog, to hopefully send an unwary reader or three my way. 

Or, I could just write my column because I really like to, concentrate my efforts on writing a good column, and hope for the best. 

{Balderdash! There's no money in that!}

Tell me about it. But still, there's something to be said for writing for a small, cheap discerning, audience. No pressure, just pleasure.

{Whatever, Dude. But ain't this supposed to be a column about Ohio, not trying to not so subtly warn Stickies and gentlereaders about how people like you are trying to manipulate them for fun and profit via the internet?}  

Ohio, temporarily my home state, and where I have lived for the past 35 years, was recently the subject of a very brief Associated Press article. I went a-googlin' and discovered that it had been published, in one form or another, on the website of many a news outlet:

Ohio printed 35,000 wrong Wright Brothers license plates 

You see, a banner, wafting in the breeze that says Birthplace of Aviation — was attached to the wrong end of the Wright brothers plane.

{In somebody or others defense, I gotta say it looks, to me, like the banner is attached properly. But let me guess, you fell in love with the phrase, wrong Wright Brothers, right?}

Wrong. All right, you're right. But it was a quote from a state spokesperson included in the article that triggered a crank attack. 

'"We will recycle the 35,000 plates that had been printed. It is too early to know about if there will be any additional cost,' said Lindsey Bohrer, assistant director of communications with the Ohio Department of Public Safety."

I'm sure that Lindsey Bohrer, as well as the other (roughly) 50,000 H. sapiens that work for the state of Ohio (as of 2017 anyway), are, on average, very nice people (you'd be amazed...maybe not, at how difficult it is to find current numbers) and that the same can be said for the 132 full-time legislators.   

BIG BUT, additional cost? None of these 50,132 people thought of 2 words, eBay?

{Two words?}

Well, two words mashed together, Echo Bay, tweaked, presumably to capitalize on a then-current fad to insert an e (for electronic) in front of any and all internet-related ventures. Echo Bay by the by, was the name of the consulting company run by eBay's founder, Pierre Omidyar. 

{What the hell are you...}

If one of the first items sold on AuctionWeb (eBay's predecessor) by Omidyar was a busted laser pointer for $14.83 — the busted laser pointer that launched a gazillion transactions — surely it would be easy to sell 35,000 "collector's items" in a market consisting of 7,900,000,000 potential customers?

Misprinted Ohio license plate - Mint condition, never used - Shipped to you in the same authentic plastic sleeve the Ohio BMV uses for regular license plates - Comes with a certificate of authenticity that looks like a standard Ohio vehicle registration! 

And, Ohio can then pay itself sales tax. Win/win!

{This is a very weird column...}

Said the imaginary literary device.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

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Please feel free to comment on my work on my Facebook page. I post my latest column there every Saturday and interesting things on other days.