Good morning, Portland. Here are some links you can check out if you have a lull in your conversation at brunch.
ICYMI, four Pioneer Place galleries were given a five-week notice to vacate their spaces: “Now they’re moving out, and the space they occupied will be taken over by a corporate tenant. The mall’s management have not yet publicly disclosed the name of the new tenant.”
In The Oregonian this morning: “TriMet and the union representing its front-line employees are gearing up for what could be a particularly contentious round of contract negotiations.”
Former Trail Blazers great Terry Porter is returning to the city to coach the men at the University of Portland, which is sweet. While we’re at it, let’s revisit some old Terry Porter highlights:
Speaking of the Blazers, here’s Jezebel’s Julianne Escobedo Shepherd writing in Deadspin about the “Jail Blazers” era:
Though it’s now so emblematic of a certain type of artisanal culture that it’s been spoofed for several seasons on IFC’s Portlandia, Portland at the turn of the millennium was a small city with a somewhat provincial feel, a community-oriented town just learning how to grow, even a little bit, into what it has become. It was then and is surely now a city with fairly progressive politics, and those politics often encompass marijuana. Obviously, weed and vibes brings tons of hippies to its ranks, but there’s also the fact that virtually everybody loves weed. (A very stupid joke, when our team would play Denver, was “BLAZERS VERSUS NUGS,” WINK WINK. Do people still do that? So dumb, but I loved it.)
Ok, just one more Blazers link for the day, I promise. GQ has a great interview with guard C.J. McCollum.
The New York Times has a profile of PBR’s owner, Eugene Kashper. Money quote:
“We’ve become an affordable, lighter beer that appeals to people who like craft beer,” Mr. Kashper said. “And, look, selling sub-premium beer is a very profitable business for us, no matter what else we may be doing.”
A bad person said a silly thing on Twitter this morning:
Wisconsin has suffered a great loss of jobs and trade, but if I win, all of the bad things happening in the U.S. will be rapidly reversed!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 2, 2016