Old Portland

I'm not from-from Portland. I grew up like a little pine cone in the mountains of Colorado. But I've lived here for a minute. A decade, to be honest. Perhaps you're the same? A long-term foundling of the North country? It's nice to have a nice place to live, and to love.

Change, though—change fucking happens!

"Portland is expected to see a population growth of 725,000 in the next 20 years," says, like, everyone. Property prices are poppin', and all the old business are going away.

This weekend I went to an art show commemorating a passing Portland icon—the Magic Garden. If you know it, then you know it's a dirty hipster strip club, magnificent in an "old-Portland" way, which is a term I keep using lately. Old Portland. Cheap and scummy, but with a heart of gold. Tarnished gold. Maybe brass.

The strippers donned clothes and gave all their $1s back—a move, I'm told, that portends the coming of the apocalypse.

Also, a line out the door for the Slammer? Mind. Boggling.