It should be said that the Merc's (Sarah) Mirk was on this two months ago, and she also makes the salient point that the Blazers are not granted first dibs on the Rose Quarter, although I'm sure their submission will get plenty the look-see....
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Your reporter is not paid well, especially if one agrees nothing is not "well." There are, however, myriad minor perks and fringes that have come up now and again, that offered at least something out of the ordinary if not a keepsake thrill. I got to ask Nancy Pelosi a question at a press conference in Portland in 2008. I've drunk free beer at an environmental coalition party, and I was able to meet Dan Savage while working last year's Rebooting Democracy. The Attorney General even stops by to chat when he sees me typing downtown at lunch. And I have two highly official-looking Obama visit press passes, complete with lanyard, that did indeed get me into media-restricted areas and past long lines--and to meet Colin Meloy of the Decemberists while waiting for the Senator/President.
As noted, your mileage may vary as to the interest level or brush with greatness any of these opportunities represent. And I'm shamelessly name dropping, but in order to make a point: in four years Loaded Orygun has been to some interesting places, usually as a skeptical observer who invariably takes more than their fair share of strawberries from the cheese tray. But until last night, your reporter had never actually been schmoozed as, quote, "an opinion leader."
And yet there in Suite 33 of the Rose Garden, a half hour before the Blazers would squeak by the Denver Nuggets before a packed house sounding ready for the real games, were Larry Miller and J Isaac, President and VP of the team respectively. Also in attendance were several other "opinion leaders," all assuredly more legitimately so than I, including a friendly group representing the effort to get the USS Ranger carrier decommissioned on the Willamette downtown.
And sitting in a plush chair, drinking a Jones root beer, was your reporter. Supposed to be there, in fact. Invited, even. Came up via the special elevator and everything. The invitation was to hear one of the first outreach presentations of the crystallizing plans for redevelopment in the Rose Quarter, to be retro-trendily named Jumptown.
{A little on the presentation, some on the game, and a passel of photos below the jump...}
A bit delayed, given that the rally was Friday, but I did go down and cover the event in front of Senator Wyden's Portland office, snapped a couple of photos, and talked with Lisa Caballero, the volunteer organizer while getting a copy of her statement and testimonials from ordinary Oregonians about their strong desire for a public option.
See, that was the reason for the rally, to try and push Wyden towards a full and robust public option (FRPO). Here's a picture of them doing that!
The shot I have here is cropped a bit; the strength of the rally was a definite 50+ and closer to 75 by my headcount. (That's easily double or triple the group who came out for single payer, although I did recognize some overlap). They spoke, chanted and got honks for about 20 minutes before dispersing, but they did deliver their petition (more on that below), raise some awareness and earn media attention (WWeek and the Merc).
Here's the transcription of the audio I got talking to Caballero after the rally, which wasn't really conducted as a formal interview--but she does make some good points which echoed her speech:
People don't quite understand the politics of what's happening. Wyden keeps making these statements that are quite confusing to someone that's not bothering to dig and be informed. I have had people just from this event say, "why are you out here? Wyden is supporting a public option." Well actually he's not; if you listen to what he's saying, he's saying he supports a public option if it's "sustainably financed." And then he doesn't describe what that is.
I would be happier if he just said, "I disagree with you; we don't see eye to eye on this and this is what I'm supporting, can I convince you?" But instead, he's deliberately not being straightforward to people that aren't up to their neck in this issue It's confusing to people. So I think we're really getting down to the point where he needs to come out and make a statement. This week Sen. Kennedy's committee has come out with a bill. There's something on the table. It's been vetted by the Congressional Budget Office, and so they've got a number on it. My question to Sen. Wyden is, does he consider the finances of that bill to be sustainably financed?
The problem that starts happening with someone like me is I'm not a professional. I'm not an economist, I'm not a policy wonk, I just read the newspaper. So I can't argue policy with complicated answers like that about Senate procedures. But I just get the feeling that I'm not being dealt with straightforwardly.
I had to reprint some of these, because a) they're really good in a lot of cases, and b) they're exclusive to Loaded Orygun, and some pretty hot party shots of the newly nominated team and some major celebs. Portlandia put links to her efforts into the story she posted late Saturday night, but I wanted folks to get a chance to see them without even having to link up. (I appreciate her concern for my bandwidth, though!) So, for you who missed them the first time, a selection of photos from Denver, on the floor at Invesco and at a bigshot afterparty featuring "The Ticket":
Portlandia got some shots of the speakers you didn't see, who were apparently nonetheless great:
{more, including those party shots, below--be warned of bandwidth!}
It's been a while since I'd been to a pride parade--so long in fact, that at the last one I went to, in Chicago in the late 80s, "bi" revelers were still trying to get their mention among the initials that now include G,L,B, T and Q. I remember a speaker referring multiple times to "gay and lesbian"...only to have the same two women shout out each time, "And BI!"
So I was interested to see how such things had matured over the years, both aided and cursed by the rapdily declining novelty and controversy of such parades. I called up some new lesbian friends who had moved here from Colorado within the last year (and thus had also never seen a Portland Pridefest), and asked if they wanted to check out the scene. They're in their 40s (as am I), and like many people gay or straight, had lost some interest in the bass pumpin' party scene. Thus sequestered from the Portland gay community by age and 12 miles of I-5, they were eager to connect with some of "their people" as they put it, and see how the community compared to the one they had left behind.
Color us all a little sunburned, but mighty impressed. Portland GLBTQ has it going on, folks. I don't know what the crowds looked like all along the route, but near the reviewing stand where emcee and stunning Latina drag queen Meesha Peru made her base, the street was packed and continued to press forward from the sidewalks, pushing the parade participants into an ever-narrower, ever more intimate channel of compressed festivity. And I certainly wasn't the only straight person there to live a little vicariously; there was lots and lots of allied support, both in the parade and looking on.
One thing that had definitely changed since the last time I'd been to a pridefest was the level of corporate and "mainstream institution" participation. There were groups from Nike, PGE, Wells Fargo, Providence Health Group, the City of Portland and Portland Public Schools among others. Think about that last one for a little bit--someone at PPS decided that there wasn't a thing wrong in associating the school district with the gay community...and more importantly, that no one else would think there was either. If I had to guess I'd say they made the right call.
I'd love to say that business has made a value judgement and welcomed the gay community because it's the right thing to do, but the better answer is that at least in Portland, the community is young, well educated and relatively affluent. Corporations aren't stupid--gay people buy stuff. But they also have definitely calculated what their risk-reward ration is in lending their name to such an event, and it's another positive cultural sign (again, in Portland at least) that companies feel comfortable reaching out to the gay community without worrying about the rest of their customer base.
Sociological considerations aside, the parade was simply a blast. The good vibes were pouring out of everyone you saw--broad smiles, unaffected dancing...just pure joy on so many faces. It's infectious, and I headed back to my boogie hovel feeling pretty damn good about the world for a day. Love IS love!
With that, I'm going to jump below the fold and upload some photos I took with an iPhone, which is not exactly a precise photographical instrument, but it takes decent enough photos. If you are on a slow bandwidth connection, recognize that the page will take some time to download.
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