ian let me be the first to say your column so does not suck today it may retro-actively cause your previous column that Did suck not to suck.
Alas I am lacking your ability to craft sensical compound sentences today. The sense I do have is you can occasionally tap a vein o written f communication few can. Does it take Auntie Feelgood cold calling you on the train to distill the hipster drivel out of your qwerty? hope not.
I will be watching...

Ian, it is time that we sat down to confront the elephant in the room that we have been avoiding as long as we could pretend it was not harming anyone. This is said with love and care for your development as an artist and as a person. You have been leaning on the crutch of feel-good, emotionally manipulative columns for too long. When PAF first began, it often seemed hastily scrapped together, resorting to lazy copy-fill in the form of nonsensical lists, and befuddling one word columns that seemed to be an inside joke. At first, it was forgivable. There is a great difference between writing comedy for a standup act and writing comedy for the page. You were taking your first steps, finding your voice, and despite the troubles showed promise.

You had your first true home run of a column with your sports and civic pride themed "Finding The We". With its tastefully delivered humor that was woven into an anecdote that evoked togetherness and pride amongst disparate populations within Portland, it showed that you had more to offer then hatred of specific types of cabbage. But in the following weeks, with an increasing amount of purple prose and pandering to topical interests, things took an unfortunate turn. It is not that the writing is ineffective, it is that emotionally heavy writing that gives service to emotional social/political issues is the literary equivalent of the orchestral swells of John Williams while the ghost of a troubled youths dad tells the kid he loves him and is sorry he wasn't there to see him grow up in a movie. It works, and people feel all fuzzy and huggy, but ultimately feels unearned and cheap.

This is said with love, Ian. You can find the middle ground between greeting card sentimentality and Cracked listicle.

^^^THIS GUY SEEMS COOL^^^

Just one mans opinion. I am probably the most Dislike'd commenter here, but my words seem to get under the skin of several active contributors being as I seem to get direct responses from authors.. which seems rare. We have met, chatted briefly outside of Backspace, I bet if I pointed out who I was next time I saw you after fighting the urge to slap me would be surprised it was me.

IK, maybe carry $0.50 in your pocket to hand to someone that "needs to use your phone" next time you're on the MAX. I know entirely what you mean about saying 'no,' but still feeling a little awful about it. At least $0.50 would get a phone call at the nearest MAX platform payphone.

That's good advice, Ben!

Mediocre is an apt name.

Hey Ian, this is a great column. I'm glad you're reflecting on mental health and addiction issues in Portland, Oregon. Would you please go see our film, Alien Boy, at Cinema 21, before it finishes? It deals with schizophrenia and mental health funding in the state. If you're interested in talking more about these issues and in actually making a difference I'd encourage you to contact Jason Renaud at the Mental Health Association of Portland. He's extremely Googleable. Tell him I sent you and you'll get a nice cup of coffee and a friendly chat. You're a great writer. We need more advocates like you.

Ian - absolutely heartfelt, and I can relate too well. Ignore the trolls. It's a courageous thing to open up and be genuine like this in a public forum.

Hey, Mediocre! If you know Ian in real life as you claim, maybe try offering him these thoughtful critiques in person instead of using the anonymity of the internet to passive aggressively talk shit!

Just, you know, "confronting the elephant in the room."

Hey man, dealing with that stuff is tough. I'm sorry about your aunt. Regardless of where you were in your relationship with her, you wanted things to get better. At the same time, both your distance from her and your occasional emotional armor are completely understandable.

As for street people, it's hard to know what to do at all times. And you're allowed to have a bad day.

Also and, you're not alone. Drugs and dysfunction are everywhere. Here's the story of my mom's last week, one of millions:

http://satorical.blogspot.com/2009/02/and-…

as a recovering pill addict, this is incredibly restrained and mature. you're doing great work, dude.

to the trolls, both active and lurking: if that's what gets your dick hard, keep telling people they're bad at doing shit you can't do. we all gotta get it up somehow