THE APOPLECTIC APOCALYPSE
RE: “The Impending Portland Apocalypse” [Letters, Aug 13], in which letter writer MH unloads familiar complaints about gentrification, the rising cost of living, and the increasing challenges to living the old Portland dream of creatively destitute bohemianism.
TO MH—I’m just a little annoyed at your letter. I was born in Portland 31 years ago, and now live in a third world country in South America because I can afford the rent here, and being homeless during Portland winters got old quickly. You blame everyone but yourself for the high rents, and seem to be entirely unconcerned about anyone but yourself. What kind of karma is that? It’s called “supply and demand,” [and] there are way more people who want to live in Portland now than 16 years ago. Hence, the housing prices rise until the homes fill with the top-crop wage carriers. As the expression goes, “Hate traffic? You are traffic!” You are the reason rents are higher, and also the reason why I was treated like shit in the community of my birth for years as a homeless person until I got the balls to leave forever to South America. I still miss Portland a lot sometimes, as in my heart it will always be my home and my community. Fuck you. Some people lost a lot more than practice space.
Chloe
MH—Stop whining and just move on. What you’re seeing happen here is as common as dirt. And no, the yuppies will not miss you—they will be quite happy being surrounded by their own kind, just like you were happy when surrounded by your own kind. I’m a 68-year-old ex-hippie who has seen it happen in the Village, East Village, Woodstock, SoHo, Chelsea, and Brooklyn. Also in Sausalito, the Haight, and SoMa. What you should be doing, rather than kicking and screaming, is figuring out the Next Place the young, weird, and creative will be hanging out. (Or has nobody told you yet? Maybe they want to leave you behind?) After 10 years here I’m finally done chasing that particular illusion, and will soon opt for the No Trend peace of the countryside. (Hey! We could call it NoTre and start a whole new thing!)
Craig Michaels
This is a magical place where rampant insecurity has been turned inside out into arrogance of such monumental proportions that [MH] thinks that she and her friends are the ones who define Portland coolness. Portland will do just fine without hipster culture and arguably become even cooler, more eclectic, and more tolerant. Lately, people have moved to the Pacific NW for its laid back culture, its gorgeous vistas, its music, its food, its dismal, romantically dreary winters, and its temperate summers. They certainly didn’t move here to be drowned in a tide of sweaty, angry narcissistic 30-somethings slinging Casio keyboards, smug looks, and mediocre bands.
Posted by Dr. Meow
THE BURGER AWARDS
RE: Burger Week, the Mercury‘s second annual citywide festival of delicious and amazing burgers from some of the city’s finest chefs. (Uh-oh, did you miss it? Stay tuned for summer of 2015!)
DEAR MERCURY—We are the Burger Week burger eaters, and we demand recognition for our achievements. I know I am not alone in subjecting myself to a strict regimen of three to four burgers a day for that magical week. I personally did 19 burgers in six days. I want to hear the stories of the other magnificent folk who put their tummies on the line for their obsessions with completeness and burgers. I enjoyed getting to see new parts of the city in my quest, but I’d enjoy it even more if there was some kind of burger punch card and certificate of completion at the end of the tunnel. Also, how about a race where the first person to get every burger wins? Prizes are meaningless, honor is everything.
Burgersandy
NOT A BAD idea, Burgersandy, and we are glad to hear that your internal organs were able to withstand such a truly triumphant attack by Burger Week 2014! Prizes may be meaningless, but we would still like to extend to you two passes to the Laurelhurst Theater for winning this week’s Mercury Letter of the Week! Please do us the honor of accepting.
Will someone give a working definition of what a yuppie IS?? People with money who are intolerant of other people distinctly different and less affluent than themselves and who use their money to take over the areas that have meaning to those they essentially evict? To me this is a yuppie, not just rich people who move here to be a part of portland and contribute to it. Portland is very cool because of people like MH and anyone else who’s love of doing their thing does not involve disrespecting others who love doing their thing in their neighborhood.
@ Chloe – Right there with you for the most part. I have no idea how this town gets to feeling like they’ve done so much for the homeless when it is the one town in the northwest where people sleep on a dirty pissed on sidewalk.
@Dr. Meow; again, rich people moving to Portland for it’s laid back culture would be great if they weren’t so bent on changing everthing within ten square blocks of it.
@Craig Michaels – so you spent 68 years running as people shoved you out of towns -one or more of which I assume you cared about- and now you hide in the countryside because you have no hope there is anything to stop people with money? well p-town and america for that matter don’t need you. Power IS actually in the people- the trick is getting them together to use it. And after 68 years you have absolutely no advice on how we might even begin to possibly accomplish this? Have fun in retirement.
MH doesn’t deserve all that vitriol! He’s calling it like it is. Culture out. Yuppies In.
And for that, he gets told to ‘love it or leave it’ by some old hippie, a homeless guy, and a hipster-hater. This shit is just the time-honored, American tradition of kicking a poor person while he’s down.
Look folks, here’s the deal with gentrification: While one person gets to choose a nice, new home, someone else forcibly loses theirs. It’s okay to wonder why you are losing your home. (And, yes, a rental is a HOME to someone. Don’t even start with this supply/demand crap, you heartless bastards!)
You don’t have to care about the people you’re displacing (this is the land of the free [market] after all), but how in the world can you deny that Portland’s culture is what made housing prices go up in the first place? No, MH didn’t do it single-handedly, but I bet he’s more interesting than any of you transplants who continue to not get the point.