Brian's [a] Straight Dope

NBA championships: a basketball oligarchy (or: why I hate the Lakers)

The first National Basketball Association title was won in 1947 by the Philadelphia Warriors over the Chicago Stags. In the following season, Philadelphia's repeat bid was ended in the Finals by the Baltimore Bullets.

Over the following 21 seasons from 1949-69, however, either the Lakers or Celtics franchises would go on to win 16 of the NBA titles at stake. That's more than 75 percent.

Today, with the Finals set to begin and the Lakers going for their 15th title (the ninth in Los Angeles), I looked up online a list of the NBA champions from each season. I knew the Celtics have won the most championships with 17, of course, with the Lakers in second. Combined the two franchises have now won 32 of 62 titles, just over half.

Let me reiterate: the Celtics and Lakers have won over half of the NBA titles. If there is any justice in sports (there isn't), neither of these teams would win another title ever again.

After Boston and LA, from watching through my lifetime I know the Bulls have 6, the Spurs have 4, the Pistons 3, as well as the Knicks and Rockets both with 2. But what about the rest?

One thing I particularly wondered was how many teams like my beloved Trail Blazers have won just a single title. As it happens, it's a pretty rare occurrence. Only three NBA teams that are still in their original cities - Portland, the Milwaukee Bucks and Miami Heat - have a single title. The Atlanta Hawks also won a title while located in St. Louis (1958), as did the now-defunct Rochester Royals (they became the Kansas City and then Sacramento Kings) in 1951 and the Seattle SuperSonics in 1979 (they're now the Oklahoma City Thunder).

And if you add the Bulls and Spurs to the Celtics and Lakers, those four teams have won 42 of 62 titles. That means four teams have won over two thirds of the rings.

Every sport has bullies with more money and bigger-city fan bases that horde titles. The New York Yankees are the biggest with 23 or 24 titles. In hockey there is the Montreal Canadiens, or there are Manchester United and Liverpool in English Premiere League soccer. College football has Notre Dame and USC.

But in none of those sports (except maybe the Premiereship) is there such a clog of a small oligarchy of teams winning the vast majority of the titles.

It makes me all the more happy that Portland managed to beat the odds and win the 1977 championship. And that a very promising championship window may be opening for the Blazers soon.

Oh, and in the spirit of tonight's game: go Magic!

From the archives: a conversation with David Lynch, just after 9/11

Today I was looking in my work archives for an interview I did with an engineer several years ago. I still haven't found that interview, but I happened to come across a transcript of the interview I did with director David Lynch in fall 2001, just a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks.

The interview became part of a profile I wrote of Lynch for Salon, in which I remember using this quote from novelist David Foster Wallace:

"Some guy killing his wife in and of itself doesn't have much of a Lynchian tang to it, though if it turns out the guy killed his wife over something like ... an obdurate refusal to buy the particular brand of peanut butter the guy was devoted to, the homicide could be described as having Lynchian elements."

At the time, I was terrified of even flying from Portland to LAX for fear of some kind of terrorist attack. I even thought to myself, "If I have to die, at least it will be while going to interview one of my all-time favorite filmmakers." As it happens, the flight went just fine. But it's an indication of how shaken I and many were in those first days after 9/11. And, of course, there was something slightly Lynchian about the American national mood during this time period. On the way to the interview, I saw a marquee meant to say "God Bless America," but the 'B' had fallen off. I ended up using it as an opening anectdote for the story.

Once I got to the interview, which took place over a couple hours at Lynch's production company, it was fun and surreal. Lynch owns two homes next door to each other in the Hollywood hills, one for his home and the other for offices. We did the interview in his backyard painting studio, which included a time-out at one point so Lynch could pee into the utility sink. "I drink a lot of coffee," he explained. I also loved his genuine boy-scout vocabulary. He alternately called me "Buster" and "Buddy" through the course of the talk.

This interview also was memorable for me in how it, at least indirectly, affected my own hobby making short videos - mostly travelogues and such. In this interview, Lynch talks a lot about being open to happy accidents and impromptu discoveries as an artist.

Even though my little camcorder travelogue videos are nothing compared to Lynch's movies, I really took to heart what he said during our talk about how "...you always have to stay on guard for something new that comes in to join with the ideas that have already gone down on paper. It’s always an experiment until you get to the point where it feels correct. It’s funny, you can prepare for happy accidents, but you can’t set them up. That’s the nature of them: they surprise you. The strangest, smallest things can lead to big, beautiful things."

As you'll see in the interview, we talked just a few days before his film Mulholland Drive opened...

BRIAN: Mulholland Drive is opening nationwide tomorrow. Are you nervous?

LYNCH: For a couple of reasons you have detachment. One is for safety reasons. And one is because you finished the film quite a long time before it’s released. At the same time, I’ve done everything I can. I’ve traveled and talked and done whatever they asked me to do.

Do you believe the PR machine does a movie like Mulholland Drive much good? 

All that can help, but really it’s still about word of mouth. It comes down to a ‘buzz’ that a certain film either has or doesn’t have. So far, knocking on wood, it’s going really well.

Do you feel an extra sense of closure because of this film’s unusually long journey from TV pilot to feature?

It’s like having a child who had to have a serious operation that made it OK, and maybe even a little bit better because of the operation. It looked like this project was dead for awhile. Then I got really lucky as these ideas came to me. The process really was interesting, and now it feels like this was the way it was always meant to be.

With Mulholland Drive combining the pilot with new footage shot later, do you have a personal attachment to one part over another?

No, because when it switched into a feature and I got the ideas of how to make that happen, it changed the viewpoint. Suddenly it was seen from different angle, and it was new again. It was like if you had a rug and you wanted to make it bigger: a lot of the thread went into the original rug, and the ideas for the new part of the rug were indicated by the original. But it’s one rug.

So maybe this unusual path for the movie helped push you, at least for this project, into a different kind of creative process.

You said it, Brian. If Mulholland Drive started out as a feature, it would be a completely different film. It’s like the surrealists, who would throw up these scraps of paper and see how they come down. These things trick the mind, and so new things come out of it. All you have to do is look back and see the changes in cinema to see that it’s always got room to grow and change in surprising ways. And how do you arrive at those new ways? Sometimes it’s because you’re forced into a corner. That’s a beautiful thing.

Have there been many aspects of your films that resulted from these sort of happy accidents?

There are some parts in all my films that have been the result of this. I have heard filmmakers say that they know exactly what they’re going to do every day of the shoot, but I don’t know if I believe that. You may think a script is finished, but when you go out and start filming you always have to stay on guard for something new that comes in to join with the ideas that have already gone down on paper.

Feeling out what’s right and what’s not seems to be a very important part of how you work.

Exactly. It’s always an experiment until you get to the point where it feels correct. It’s funny, you can prepare for happy accidents, but you can’t set them up. That’s the nature of them: they surprise you. The strangest, smallest things can lead to big, beautiful things.

Thinking of this notion of discovery in light of your first feature, Eraserhead, taking five years to make, did the extra time help foster this process?

Discoveries don’t necessarily need a lot of time to occur. But when you have time, you sink deeper into the world. It’s about staying true to the original ideas, whichever way they came to you. If you do that, then you have a chance to translate them properly.

Due to the dark nature of your films, people often assume you had a disturbed childhood. But you’ve countered that it was actually quite idyllic. Where did you get your first glimse of the darker world that has inspired you?

I grew up in the Northwest, but my mother was from Brooklyn. So I would go to New York every now and again, and I would have that shock at a young age and then go away. In the beginning I think it was very pleasant, but then New York, like most cities, suffered a real decline. Contrasts are what make people feel things, and I felt a huge contrast.

And then later you lived in Philadelphia, which, as you’ve often said, played a big role in the development of your artistic sensibility.

My greatest influence was Philadelphia. When I went there, I found myself living under this blanket of fear. It took a year after I got to California for the fear to lift off. It’s called ‘The City of Brotherly Love’, and I always say if a city is going to call itself that, then they kind of owe it to the people there to make sure that that’s true. It was so far from true that it wasn’t even funny. It was such a corrupt, sick place that it was a pitiful joke of a town.

And yet as work of yours like Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks shows, evil and darkness can just as easily exist in small-town America.

For sure. When you live in a remote place in the country, you could say that’s very peaceful and beautiful—until man appears in the distance, walking slowly toward your home. If anybody approaches your house in the country, from the distance you can’t tell if they’re friendly or not. So there’s a different kind of fear.

You also claim to be not much of a film buff. It is it safe to assume your own past is your greatest influence?

Even though I have films that I truly love, they are more of an inspiration than an influence. It’s an enthusiasm that you get from seeing something that you truly love. The influence is always the ideas. And the way you translate the ideas is key: staying true to them.

And if you get an idea from a movie it’s not your idea.

Right. It’d be like eating somebody else’s food.

It also seems noteworthy that you grew up in the 1950s, and that era—one of darkness percolating beneath a romanticized family façade—seems to have rubbed off on you. It was an innocent time, a naïve time, and in a way false time. But that’s how you see it looking back. When I was in it, it was fantastic. It didn’t seem false. I saw plenty of strange things, but there was an enthusiasm, a very positive feeling that you could do anything. And that’s a good feeling.

As we see in Film Noir, an inspiration for much of your work, the ’50s represent a desire for normalcy after a horribly difficult war. But you can’t just flip a switch and make the memories go away.

War kind of balances things out for awhile. It’s like fresh air after a storm. It lasts for a certain number of years and then it begins to putrefy again. But during those few years, there’s this great feeling. It was a very positive, creative time. Everything sort of reflected that. At the same time, there were probably things brewing under the surface that couldn’t hold indefinitely.

And ‘things brewing under the surface’ are a huge component of your work.

That’s always the way it is. There’s a good side to hiding things, but there’s a sick side to it as well. And now in the last ten years, or maybe even awhile back before that, everything has been more exposed. The sickness is getting light put on it. I think maybe that’s kind of a good thing. You’re shocked at first, but people understand human nature. It can lead to something really good.

Your films contain a great deal more abstraction and enigma than most everything else coming out of Hollywood. Should more filmmakers and audiences be willing to embrace this style?

It’s about likes and dislikes, and that’s a subjective thing. Some people love getting lost and feeling their way out. Other people have more literal minds, and get angry when things are not very specific. A Hollywood studio is a big business, and therefore has to think about attracting a majority, because it’s about getting people into the theaters. But if you’re making films for a different reason, then you don’t have to worry about that, or at least not as much.

But of course the risk is always there that, if a picture bombs, you won’t get to make another.

I’ve been very lucky, because I’ve made enough to break even. No persons who have financed my films have been hurt, although some distributors have. New Line, for example, lost money on Fire Walk With Me, although it wasn’t the only film they’ve ever lost money on.

So how do you acknowledge that pressure while staying true to your vision? You just hope that people get the same thrill that you got getting those original ideas. And that’s what it’s all about. When you’re painting, you’re not thinking about an audience. You’re in a thrilling world, and then you have a show and hope that thrilling world will thrill other human beings. It’s a real eye opener. Sometimes it’s shocking how few people are thrilled.

How do you handle it when this happens?

The only safety is in being true to the ideas, so that at the end you can say, ‘It feels correct.’ If you’ve done that, then it doesn’t really hurt as bad if people don’t go for it.

Do you ever second-guess decisions you’ve made in past movies?

There are probably things I’d like to change in every film, but they’re minor. In my short film The Grandmother, in the last shot I like the whole frame except for this pod in the center that I drew wrong. Now it’d be so easy to get that correct, but that’s the way it was, and that’s the way it should stay. When the films are done they’re done.

Considering the proliferation of more affordable video and post-production equipment, do you think if you had grown up now you’d have had a camera in your hands at an earlier age?

I could get my hands on a camera anytime. For a long time I just never thought about it. As soon as I thought about it I had a camera within a week. You can always do what you want to do. It’s true that it’s getting easier and easier, but also a camera is still just a tool. It’s the ideas and how you express those ideas. If people have that drive and catch the ideas, there is better and better opportunity to express themselves.

You talk a lot about spending time just sitting and thinking in search of creative ideas. Do people spend enough time doing this?

We don’t. Life is going real fast. And you can catch some ideas going fast, for sure. But I always say ideas are like fish, and there are all different kinds of fish: some fast, some slow.

So how do you catch these ideas?

It’s a mystery, and you can’t force an idea to come to you. But you can make preparations. It’s like you can’t force yourself to go to sleep, but you can lay comfortably in the bed and close your eyes, get nice and cozy, and eventually you’ll go to sleep. If you sit in a chair, and if you have a desire for ideas, you begin to daydream, and you’ll see that daydreams will take you to different places. There’s a lot of mundane places it takes you. But if you have a desire for ideas, as you’re daydreaming you’re sinking deeper in. And all of a sudden you can catch one.

How do you know which idea is right among the infinite possibilities?

When you catch ideas there’s not an infinite amount of possibilities. As soon as you catch your first idea a road is indicated. As these ideas come along, some will go along that road and some will take you on a different road.

With respect to some of your more abstract films—Lost Highway, Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive—do you write and direct these intending at certain points for there to be multiple meanings, or do you know exactly what everything means?

I know exactly what everything means. I really believe consciousness is like a ladder, and there are different rungs of consciousness. If you’re on one rung, you have a certain understanding of things. Then you go up a couple a couple of rungs and it’s like a new world. Whatever level you’re at, that’s your level. You shouldn’t judge another person, because you don’t know where they are at or what their right or wrong is. You should just be taking care of yourself and following what’s inside you. It doesn’t matter what level you’re on. If you stay true to the ideas, in the translation they could have a different meaning for someone on a different level of consciousness.

What if someone were to come to you with a theory about one of your movies that was entirely different from what you had in mind when you made it?

I would say, ‘Very good.’ In a way ideas are like music on the page. Depending the ability of the musicians to play and the conductor interpreting the notes, you can get huge variations. But it’s the same notes on the page.

And if you tell someone what one of your films or TV episodes means, they don’t get to interpret it in their own way.

It robs people of their right to figure things out for themselves. It’s like somebody saying, ‘This is what life is all about.’ People have said it in different ways, but it falls on deaf ears because you have to experience life yourself and find your own way out. That’s part of the beautiful trick.

In Fire Walk With Me, the Log Lady says to Laura, “When this kind of fire starts, it is very hard to put out. The tender bows of innocence burn first. And the wind rises, and then all goodness is in jeopardy.” In the wake of September 11, what can we learn from your films’ constant exploration of innocence vs. naïveté?

What strikes me is that it seemed like it happened on September 11, but in a sense it didn’t. It’s like a doctor telling you that you have cancer, but the cancer has been growing in your body, sometimes even for years before. I think the key to a lot of it is for us to look back and see how come it happened, and face that, and rectify that and move forward.

It’s like a moment from your films: While we went innocently about our business, something evil was lurking under the surface.

I think it’s safe to say the world’s getting crazier all the time. Facing the music and learning from it is all you can do. Like with cancer, you’ve got to remove it without killing the whole body. People are analyzing what might have gone wrong, and that’s a good sign. That can be a beautiful thing. Granted it’s a little bit late, but better late than never.

And this comes back to giving yourself the opportunity to generate ideas. It’s not just true for creating art, but for living your life in general.

Exactly.

Numero Group is numero uno

It’s hard to think of a single instance—other than my current fascination with Numero Group—when I’ve become a big fan of a record label but not by way of any particular artist.

I may be a huge Beatles devotee, for example, or even a Duran Duran fan, but that doesn’t necessarily make me a Capitol Records enthusiast (the label both bands recorded for) or even aware of the label in any identifiable stylistic or historic way.

In the early 1990s, when I was taking a year off from school and living with friends in a band (who recorded for renowned punk label Dischord, home to and owned by the seminal band Fugazi), their influence made me a fan of not only Dischord but certain indie-rock or punk labels like Matador (home to Liz Phair) and Rykodisk (Morphine, Sugar). Had I gone to college here in the Northwest instead of being on the east coast (school in New York, my year off in DC), I might also have become a fan of labels like Seattle and Olympia-based Sub Pop and K Records.

Numero Group is something different. It specializes in reissues and collections of lesser-known soul and R&B artists of the past. In that way, though, it’s not unlike a label I loved as a kid: K-Tel Records, which produced several collections of pop hits in the 1970s and 80s. K-Tel’s name came from advertising on TV frequently, tangentially related to the “only $19.95!” genre.

I still have two K-Tel albums, by the way. One, Neon Nights, features dance and new-wave hits from the early 80s, from familiar songs like Rick James’ “Super Freak” and The Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me” to now forgotten fare by artists and groups like Skyye, Atlantic Starr and Junior. My other K-Tel album is 25 Rock Revival Greats, featuring early rock songs from the 1950s and early ’60s like “Johnny B. Goode,” “Chantilly Lace,” and “Wipe Out”. It was one of the first albums I listened to regularly on my own as a child that wasn’t children’s fare like my Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers records, or Marlo Thomas & Friends' Free To Be You and Be, and one of the first two or three albums I acquired independently of my parents. It had been given to me by a neighbor friend, Joe, out of a pile his older brother had left behind after moving out of the house.

1950s rock of this vintage, picked up from listening to 25 Rock Revival Greats, also represents some of the first music that my dad and I connected on. He loved hearing oldies like “Black Slacks” and “Rockin’ Robin”. In fact, my dad wound up taking me to what would be my first concert: Chuck Berry at Civic Auditorium in Portland. Until then, my tastes had been shaped more by my mom’s love of The Beatles, Stevie Wonder and Elton John.

Numero Group is less crassly commercial than K-Tel, oriented to the past rather than mostly the present. It’s also a much deeper ongoing delve into a treasure-trove of lesser known music, particularly R&B and soul from the 1960s and 70s, be it from a host of different American cities and regions as well as imported sounds from the Caribbean and even Israel (a funk gospel album).

The funny thing is, while I certainly always have enjoyed the occasional Motown song, I was never a huge fan of the label or its trademark sound. A lot of the Motown glory years—the mid-1960s, were a little before the time period of a few years later that I like best, musically speaking, when R&B was ready to give way to funk.

That difference could be distinguished by the work Motown artists like Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder did in each period. I adore Marvin Gaye’s What’s Goin’ On from the early 1970s, but don’t feel strongly about earlier hits like “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” More importantly, I’m resistant to hit golden-oldie songs that have permeated popular culture enough to be played constantly over the years in movies, TV shows and commercials. Part of what I love about songs from Twinight’s Lunar Rotation and some of the other Numero Uno soul collections is that it’s music I haven’t already heard played to death.

The first Numero album I bought on the label was the soundtrack (never before released) of a 1974 blaxploitation movie called Brotherman that was never actually made. The producer commissioned the soundtrack from an unfortunately titled but talented Chicago act called The Final Solution. Their style is similar to Curtis Mayfield, whose Superfly soundtrack is arguably the gold standard of blaxploitation movie-inspired albums. Its songs are about drug dealers and pimps, but the sound is bright and uplifting, the guitar-bass-drums combination firmly at root yet enlivened with a wide array of horns and strings. (I previously blogged about Brotherman separately a few months ago.)

Yet Numero Group is really about its collections of old soul music by a varity of artists. As they write on the label's website, "The mission was simple: to dig deep into the recesses of our record collections with the goal of finding the dustiest gems begging to be released from their exile on geek street. No longer would $500 singles sit in a temperature-controlled room dying for a chance to be played. No more would the artists, writers, and entrepreneurs who made these records happen go unknown and unappreciated."

My favorite collection so far is called Eccentric Soul: Twinight’s Lunar Rotation. All the music was culled from a Chicago label, first called Twilight and then later Twinight. The label was a kind of side project for a couple of music-industry insiders who specialized in signing artists to bigger major national labels but reserved their own brand for an assortment of singers and groups in the Chicago area, some of whom were on the cusp of breaking through with radio hits and some who were little more than dreamers saving up their money to satisfy the dream of recording a song or two in a professional studio.

One group in particular, The Notations, seem wondrous. Imagine the warm, heartfelt tones of Marvin Gaye and the early '70s sub-era of the Motown sound, with just a touch of the harmonizing earlier Motown groups predating like The Temptations that can be heard in songs like "A New Day" and "I'm Still Here". 

In all the Twinight’s Lunar Rotation songs I enjoy the warm, bright tones: brass sections of saxes and trumpets with jangly guitar and the occasional organ. The lyrics are often quite melancholy, yet underscored with an unrepentant sense of optimism. This is non-cynical music mostly coming out of an African-American culture of the 1960s and 70s with plenty of reason to be. And decades after the civil rights and antiwar movements from whence these songs came, the subjects (mostly love and relationships) and sounds are transcendent.

There are too many different artists and songs to talk about individually, but I have to at least mention the great band and artist names on Twinight’s Lunar Rotation, such as Renaldo Domino, Harrison & The Majestic Kind, Velma Perkins, and Nate Evans.

Another Numer Group collection I’ve played countless times over the past few months is called Cult Cargo: Grand Bahama Goombay (pictured at right). Besides the music being produced in large American cities like Chicago, Philadelphia or Miami, Numero Group has shown there to be a rich patchwork quilt of international locales that produced very listenable soul music scenes of their own. I would have expected Bahamas music to have been much more exclusively reggae-like, but Grand Bahama Goombay is closer to straight-up rock or R&B with small flourishes of calypso and other Latin American sounds.

My favorite artist on this collection is definitely Cyril Ferguson, who also goes by the stage name Dry Bread. In fact, of his two songs on the album, each is under one of the monikers. This actually seems oddly fitting given how different they are lyrically, or at least thematically. “Gonna Build a Nation,” which leads off Grand Bahama Goombay, is inspiring ‘60s rhetoric about brothers and sisters joining hand in hand to create a new, less violent, more egalitarian society. “Words to My Song,” is a witty track composed on the spot during a recording session when some impromptu jamming on guitar and drums with fellow musicians called for some lyrics on the spot. It presents the author as fed up because someone has stolen the words to his recording. He writes, “The next time I write a song/there ain’t gonna be no words/let the music go on.”

One other song from Grand Bahama Goombay is really worth mentioning: a cover of Dave Brubeck’s classic “Take Five,” by Ozzie Hall. It’s one of my favorite jazz covers, because Hall manages to maintain the sense of precision that exists in the original work but to give it a warmer, more…soulful feel than even Brubeck’s version ever had.

Two other collections I've either bought or received recently (my birthday a couple weeks ago) are Eccentric Soul: The Bick Mack Label (Big Mack was a Detroit-based Motown competitor); Cult Cargo: Belize City Boil Up, featuring music from Belize; and Eccentric Soul: The Deep City Label (pictured in the marching band shot above), music from south Florida. Of these, I know Deep City the best. As often happens with these albums, the first song seems to be one of the best: "Am I A Good Man" by Them Two, a soul-searching soul song if there ever was one.

Another favorite track on Eccentric Soul: The Deep City Label, "I Am Controlled By Your Love" by Helene Smith, typifies a type of song I've heard numerous times on these collections. In it, Smith sings of how no matter what hardships may threaten her relationship, and regardless of what mistakes or transgressions her lover commits, she is happily and unrepentantly at the mercy of her affection. Her love is undying no matter what. It gets to a level of absurdity, but the purity of the lyrics' passion is palpable and very memorable. The same could be said for "Yes, My Goodness Yes" by Velma Perkins (pictured at left) on Eccentric Soul: Twinight's Lunar Rotation.In that song, Perkins reaches a kind of estatic level of romance that is totally unpractical but again, impressive in its intensity. These women really, really love their fellas.

Not every song or artist on these Numero Uno albums is great, of course. And even after hundreds of listening hours, I’ve only scratched the surface of the label’s catalog. Yet in that time, Numero Group has done nothing less than to reshape my sense and impression of American music during the years leading up to and immediately after the time I was born, which also happened to be some of the most socially tumultuous and artistically fruitful.

Battle for Memorial Coliseum

On August 22, 1965, Allen Ginsberg saw The Beatles play a concert at Memorial Coliseum in Portland. Ginsberg was inspired enough by the experience to write a poem, “Portland Coliseum”:

A brown piano in diamond
white spotlight
Leviathan auditorium
iron run wired
hanging organs, vox
black battery
A single whistling sound of ten thousand children's
larynxes asinging
pierce the ears
and following up the belly
bliss the moment arrived
 
The million children
the thousand words
bounce in their seats, bash
each other's sides, press
legs together nervous
Scream again & claphand
become one Animal
in the New World Auditorium
 
while a line of police with
folded arms stands
Sentry to contain the red
sweatered ecstasy
that rises upward to the
wired roof.

As it happens, my mom was at that concert, too. She wrote away for tickets through the mail, as was then the custom. Her family dropped her off at the five-year-old Coliseum for a few hours during the afternoon—the Beatles played Portland on a Saturday afternoon—and picked her up afterward. “I don’t know how we ever found her again,” my grandma always says when the story is re-told. They’d thought it a little silly how worked up my mom was over the band, but after the family saw them on The Ed Sullivan Show together, at least they had some idea of the phenomenon.

Twelve years after that concert at Memorial Coliseum, on June 5, 1977, came the biggest moment of my lifetime as a sports fan, albeit one that as a five-year-old I was too young to appreciate: the Portland Trailblazers’ winning of the NBA championship. I can hear radio announcer Bill Schonely’s call in my mind, how just after the game ended 109-107, he called the time of day as he announced, “The Portland Trail Blazers are world champions. They’re number one,” but it’s because I’ve seen the video clip replayed, or heard the call on my “Blazermania” record album (produced by now-defunct local radio station KYTE).

Later in life as a teen, though, I got to see several Blazer games at Memorial Coliseum during the heyday of the Clyde Drexler-led teams that won two Western Conference Championships in 1990 and 1992 as well as the league’s best regular-season record in 1991. I remember vividly how lightning-quick the Blazer fast break was in those days, with Drexler, Jerome Kersey and Terry Porter racing down court. And needless to say, the atmosphere was special given how the Coliseum sold out literally hundreds of Blazer games in a row.

Besides The Beatles, virtually every big entertainer of the 60s, 70s and 80s played there, from Elvis to Led Zeppelin to Luciano Pavarotti. The Dalai Lama spoke at Memorial Coliseum, as did Barack Obama during his campaign last year.

Regardless of what event one would attend at Memorial Coliseum over the years (it opened in 1960), part of those memories was the building itself, particularly the dramatic sense of place that existed outside the seating bowl in the perimeter lobby.

There are times in the distant past I remember going to the Coliseum but the event or act itself is gone from my memory. Only the view through the glass remains intact.

In a design or sculptural sense, the Coliseum’s concrete seating bowl is unique and elegant in how it stands completely detached from the surrounding glass walls. Architects describe the effect of the seating bowl in relationship to the transparent perimeter of the building it as a teacup inside a glass box. It’s the kind of detail that elevates Memorial Coliseum, or any building that achieves such elegant simplicity, into being a work of pure and transcendent architecture.

The nostalgia I or others here may have for the building would not be enough of an argument in and of itself to preserve it for the future. But as the Coliseum has come under the threat of demolition this spring, and practically taken over my life in the process as the preservation effort has risen to the building’s defense, it’s become more and more clear that the building deserves whatever effort my architect friends and I can muster.

Luckily, one Portland radio station’s poll found those in favor of the Coliseum’s preservation outnumbering those supporting its demolition by more than an eight to one margin. And aside from the editorial board of The Oregonian and billionaire Merritt Paulson, whose plan to build a minor league baseball stadium in the Rose Quarter (the development that includes the Rose Garden arena and Memorial Coliseum) is what’s threatening the Coliseum with demolition, I’ve hardly found anyone in the whole city who likes this idea.

Most all American cities, when they build a bigger, newer arena for their NBA basketball team, eventually demolish the older arena. Chicago Stadium in Chicago is gone, as is The Spectrum in Philadelphia, and the Boston Garden in Boston. But Portland and Oregon have always either had or sought an identity for different values. In the last decade sustainable architecture has revolutionized design of buildings here, and Portland has become a national leader in this field. But a fundamental principle of green building is the re-use of existing buildings. The US Green Building Council, which administers the LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) rating system for sustainable buildings, is one of the numerous organizations that have written Portland mayor Sam Adams and City Council to call for Memorial Coliseum’s preservation. (The National Trust for Historic Preservation and the American Institute of Architects are two others.)

More than the value of recycling Memorial Coliseum into a viable new purpose to meet green/sustainable values, the building is worth preserving because of its enduring value as a great work of architecture.

Even people who have spent their whole lives living in Oregon don’t completely realize what an architectural treasure Memorial Coliseum actually is. Besides the sculptural quality of the teacup-in-a-glass-box concept, and the cinematic, panoramic quality of the skyline view visible through the transparent exterior, the Coliseum is one of the only indoor arenas in the world that has the capacity to be lit almost completely with natural daylight.

There is a curtain extended around the 12,000-seat seating bowl that hasn’t been opened for years. But it’s supposed to be able to be opened. When you see photographs of the Coliseum from inside with the curtain open during daytime, it’s breathtaking. A few weeks ago I interviewed by phone a retired architect, Bill Rouzie, who had been part of the design team that created the Memorial Coliseum plan. (You can read the whole interview here.) Also part of that team early on was Gordon Bunshaft, who is easily one of the five or seven most accomplished American architects of the 20^th century, responsible for masterpieces of design like Lever House in New York City.

The whole concept behind Memorial Coliseum's design, Rouzie told me, was to give the arena a sense of transparency and connection to the outside - something anathema to most large performance spaces.

"We were thinking, we’ve got this oval bowl that is going to sit in a glass box," he recalled in our phone talk. "When you’re in the bowl looking at something happening, you can either have light or not with the control of the curtain. To get out of there, or at halftime, you walk out into a space and instead of being in some blind corridor, you come out and you’ve got glass and you can see the city. You know where you are, and whether it’s day or night." 

"That was the whole point of the design. You never feel lost there. I can even get lost in some of the buildings I've designed, especially the hospitals. But not the Coliseum."

If Portlanders could stand inside the Coliseum in the daytime with the curtain open, this 49-year-old, supposedly obsolete old basketball arena without a basketball team would stand out for what it is: a mid-20^th century version of the Acropolis, Chartres Cathedral, Wrigley Field or the Rose Bowl: a public gathering place with the simple beauty and unique sense of place to endure for generations.

Part of the problem is what developers call “deliberate benign neglect”. Billionaire Blazers owner Paul Allen’s Oregon Arena Corporation has a contract with the city of Portland, which owns Memorial Coliseum, to manage the building. As shown in research by Portland State University professor William Macht, associate director of the school’s Center For Real Estate, Oregon Arena Corporation has a financial incentive to take the Coliseum to break-even point, but a financial disincentive in terms of turning a profit. After break-even point on the Coliseum, OAC receives a bigger percentage of those profits (and the City of Portland less) on events at the Rose Garden next door. And it’s at the profit-making point that much needed repairs and upkeep on the Coliseum would be triggered.

Another problem is the generational lag time that has long plagued the public when it comes to appreciating historic architecture. As my architect friend Rick Potestio said to a group of city planners during one meeting our Coliseum preservation group attended recently, if Portland had saved more of its cast-iron buildings from the late 19^th and early 20^th century, we’d have the equivalent of Bourbon Street in New Orleans. If we’d preserved more of the Victorian houses that used to exist in this city, we’d have a priceless, identity-defining collection today like San Francisco does. But societies have a long pattern of working to protect hundred-year-old buildings while dismissing forty or fifty-year-old architecture as ugly, obsolete, and worthy of demolition.

Take the statement made by Portland city council member Randy Leonard last week to The Oregonian. He called Memorial Coliseum “ugly” and said it’s a building “only a mother could love.” As it happens, Leonard graduated from Grant High School at a ceremony in the Coliseum in 1970.

But Leonard is wrong. I say that not simply he disagrees with me, although that’s a story in itself. The commissioner and I had a public war of words one week ago over email that was published online by the Portland Mercury and Willamette Week.

There has been broad consensus from the art and architecture community, as well as the broader public at large, from the time it was built. Even in early construction photos the Coliseum is impressive. Although its structure spans the equivalent of four city blocks, the building sits on just four pillars.

Fourteen years before the Coliseum was completed, in 1946 the Equitable Building in downtown Portland, designed by the great architect Pietro Belluschi, became the first structure in the world with a glass curtain wall. In this system, the building is held up not by its exterior walls but interior columns, allowing the outside “skin”, as architects call it, to be made of materials like aluminum and glass. It sounds like a no-brainer today, but this modest office building in downtown Portland was the first anywhere to be built like this. The Portland office of New York and Chicago-based architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill emerged from Pietro Belluschi’s office after he became dean of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s school of architecture in the late 1950s. And being so much larger in scale, Memorial Coliseum is a kind of sister building to the Equitable building just across the Willamette River: a glass palace born from the same office that invented the now ubiquitous glass tower.

Much of a wonder as Oregon is in terms of its natural surroundings—Cascade peaks like Mt. Hood, Mt. Bachelor and Mt. Jefferson,  rugged Pacific coastline, high desert in the east and fertile valley the west—we lack a long architectural history compared to the American east coast or Europe or much of the rest of the world. But Memorial Coliseum is just the kind of building that needs to be preserved for Portland, something to become in the future that very history that we lack today. Obviously not every old or moderately old building should be preserved, but the Coliseum is a giant in this city, vastly too important to tear down.

As I told Mayor Sam Adams during an open house about the Rose Quarter development—an incredibly surreal moment in which he interviewed me with a microphone before an audience of hundreds, TV cameras inches away—in an ideal world there will be a day in the future when the Rose Garden is torn down and Memorial Coliseum is still standing. Even after a decade and a half the Rose Garden has acquired plenty of memories of its own inside the building. But it looks like it was designed by Fred Flintstone, and the building (like most all arenas) feels closed off from the outside. There’s scarcely a window anywhere.

The moment with Mayor Adams before the TV cameras was just one of the numerous moments during the Coliseum preservation battle in which I’ve acted far beyond my normal role as an architecture and visual arts critic, becoming something much more like an activist. It’s not something I sought, and in fact I now find myself yearning for a time when the Coliseum fight is over and I’m keeping a lower, slower profile. In the past few weeks I’ve been interviewed by three or four different TV stations, been a guest on a local conservative radio talk show, and interviewed countless times by newspapers like the Portland Mercury. I've also addressed city council, joining former Oregon Governor Victor Atiyeh at the table to speak to council. It’s a temporary case of flipping sides: the interviewer becoming, however modestly and locally-focused, the interviewed. I’ve also had the experience of meeting with numerous city council members and staffers one on one. Sometimes I feel like I’m in the D.A. Pennebaker documentary about James Carville and George Stephanopolous in the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign, “The War Room.” That movie has also provided some good lessons about strategy, and the importance of directly engaging those opposing you with speed and relentlessness.

So, we know the Coliseum is a tarnished architectural gem of the past that should not be demolished. We know the building hasn’t been given a fair chance to succeed economically—that in fact the opposite is true: that it can turn a profit, but merely hasn’t been allowed to do so. Will it be allowed to continue for future generations? It’s still hard to say. Right now our side has apparently won the first of a two-stage battle. As of now the arena, says the mayor, will not be torn down for a baseball stadium. The stadium is now being planned for Southeast Portland’s Lents neighborhood. But nothing is completely guaranteed at this point. Lents is starting to look less ideal a fit than it did a week ago, and the ebbs and flows of the Coliseum’s fate have already cycled up and down countless times. Even if it’s not outright demolished, the building could still be ruined by its own renovation, be it a crass corporate entertainment mall like the Blazers have planned, or the amateur recreation complex another developer has proposed.

I keep hoping that people would look to change the architecture not in the Coliseum’s main arena but at the surrounding underground exhibition hall. It is over 50,000 square feet of space, big enough to host the Portland Auto Show for years before the Oregon Convention Center was built. The exhibition hall also wraps around the veterans’ war memorial there, with a small garden-like space cut into the ground. Think of how much this huge neglected space could be enlivened if you did something like what architect I.M. Pei created for the Louvre museum in Paris in the 1980s: a glass entry area that dramatically guides visitors into the underground space and introducing a bounty of natural light—all while preserving the original building above ground.

 

A few days ago I won a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts to study visual art as part of a small group of arts journalists, curators and artists for an intensive two-week period in June including trips to several major museums up and down the east coast and private lectures from gallerists, critics and other experts. But I reluctantly turned down the fellowship this week because it would have conflicted with the ongoing Coliseum battle. That should give some indication of how important this battle is to me.

Crossing over from writing and criticism to outright activism has given me pause many times during this struggle. As I said, the relative peace of being just a journalist again certainly conjures an attractive feel in my imagination. Like my literary hero, Ferdinand the bull of the popular children’s book Ferdinand, I yearn to leave the bullfighting arena and relax under the olive tree again.

Even so, I was encouraged last Sunday about reading a New York Times Book Review piece by Ruth Conniff about a children’s book biography of Jane Jacobs, “Genius of Common Sense.” Conniff writes: 

“Jacobs…became a well-known magazine journalist and architecture critic, and author of the groundbreaking book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. But she also put her words into action.

With carefully researched articles and community protests alike, she made a name for herself defending so-called slums, like Manhattan’s West Village, against the proponents of urban renewal, who wanted to replace historic areas with high-rise apartment buildings and freeway interchanges.

When it came to the Village, Jacobs had personal reasons for taking up the cause. She was born in Scranton, PA, but moved to New York at 18 and fell in love with the city…renovating an old house on Hudson Street…So when Robert Moses, the ‘master builder’ of New York City, decided Washington Square Park needed a four-lane highway running through it, Jacobs energetically joined a movement to stop it.

At a public meeting about the highway project, Moses stood up and bellowed, ‘There is nobody against this – nobody, nobody, nobody, but a bunch of, a bunch of mothers! Then he stomped out.’

His plan failed.”

Certainly I’m no Jane Jacobs, but there is clearly precedent for writers taking a stand against dreadful urban renewal ideas. Considering I attended New York University, its campus centered on Washington Square Park, I have Jacobs to thank for not letting a freeway go there. And through this process, I’ve often yearned for a similar kind of future, when I can go to, through, or past Memorial Coliseum and see it standing there gleaming. Even better, though, is some as-yet unborn architecture writer of the future having that same chance.

So far so good

I woke up this morning just before 9AM, almost exactly what I'd been shooting for after going to bed at midnight. When I got up, after Ruthie's usual visit to say hello, rub her face and beg for food, I noticed Valarie had decorated the kitchen with paper plates and hats that said, "Happy Fucking Birthday." Bless this woman.

And while I didn't have much time to spare before an 11AM meeting downtown, I decided to shower and read the paper fairly quickly so as to have time for breakfast around the corner at Johnny B's, a greasy spoon I love and visit often. It's literally a family business: dad and son in the kitchen, mom and daughter waiting tables.

Because I've eaten here so many times and love it, and because I grew up working in a restaurant and know these things can happen, I chose to more or less ignore the dead ant sandwiched between my two halves of pre-buttered toast. I don't mean ignore in the sense of still going through with eating the tainted pieces of toast, but rather in the sense of not making a fuss to the waitress. Luckily the shredded hash browns (a rarity in home fries-loving Portland) were outstanding.

Next it was off to a meeting with a friend at City Hall about the ongoing Memorial Coliseum and Rose Quarter issue. I had enough time to walk to the meeting over the Hawthorne Bridge instead of biking, bussing or driving.

As for the meeting itself, there's far too much to say about the whole issue here without it dominating the post. And I have a separate post on that coming soon. But being involved the last couple months with the preservation effort for Memorial Coliseum has been one of the biggest and most energizing experiences of my career.

Just a few weeks ago this architectural landmark and house of priceless Portland memories--a Blazer championship, concerts and appearances from The Beatles to Obama--was seemingly slated for the wrecking ball. Now we've won the first of a two-stage battle. Officially the Coliseum is not going to be torn down, say the mayor and city council. But we still have to protect the building from a so-called renovation that would ruin the building. (All my Portland Architecture blog posts on the Memorial Coliseum issue can be read here, once you scroll down.)

Today, though, I have license to stop and smell the roses a bit, as it were. And in my neighborhood, that's pretty easy, since every couple blocks there's a small park-like rose garden. It's turning out so far to be the kind of Oregon spring day that I love, with a rapid and continuous cycle of clouds and sun, maybe a shower now and then but mostly bright sunny skies with big white clouds herding along.

Because Valarie is unfortunately nursing a cold, we are postponing my official birthday dinner until probably this Saturday. But it's almost better this way anyway. I can have some yummy fast food of my choosing - probably pizza - and still have a nice dinner this Saturday at Le Pigeon or Sel Gris (whichever I choose - still undecided.

Even though it's beautiful outside, if I really want to treat myself, I'm often happiest in our basement editing video footage and listening to records on my parents' old Sony turntable. I loaded onto the computer some footage on tape that I shot last summer of the Vaux swifts birds that annually nest inside a Chapman Elementary School chimney for two weeks for a stopover while migrating south.

And as has been the case hundreds of times in the last few months, I listened to my 4-album collection "Eccentric Soul: Twinight's Lunar Rotation," featuring lesser-known Chicago-area soul acts from the late 1960s and early 70s. The songs have this incredible combination of warm, bright tones (especially the brass harmonies and supporting organ/guitar) and knowing melancholy. One band in particular, The Notations, stands out as the class of the bunch, but right now I'm particularly partial to songs by several artists:

Harrison & The Majestic Kind, "Tearing Me Up Inside"

The Notations, "I'm Still Here"

Velma Perkins, "Yes My Goodness Yes"

Krystal Generation, "Is It Meant to Be"

The Notations, "I Can't Stop"

Chuck & Mac, "Powerful Love"

The Notations, "A New Day"

Velma Perkins, "I'll Always Love You"

Now if you'll excuse me, there's another round of espresso to be had.

You're doing great, Big Fella (and the stats prove it)

To be a Greg Oden fan and pin your lifetime of hopes for a Blazer championship to his injury-prone knees is not an emotionally easy road.

First there was the micro-surgery that took his whole first season away. Then there was his shaky 13-minute debut at the Staples Center this year, in which Oden looked like a deer before a Buick's headlights before succumbing to another injury. When he first began playing regularly, it seemed like the Blazers' star center in waiting could either dunk the basketball or get called for traveling. With the ball in his hands, Oden has sometimes resembled one of those mini-AT-AT walkers from the Endor scenes of Return of the Jedi after the Ewoks place a bunch of legs underneath it so the walker wobbles and falls down: a huge piece of expert machinery rendered a joke.

As the regular season has inched along, Oden has taken a huge amount of criticism and mockery. On the Blazer blogs I visit, commenters routinely compare him to Sam Bowie and call him a bust. They predict he'll always be injured, or if he isn't, Oden will reveal himself--as #1 overall picks go--far closer to Kwame Brown, Joe Smith and Andrew Bogut than Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwan or Tim Duncan. Even Blazer fans wanting to give Oden the benefit of the doubt believe that Joel Pryzbilla is a better center.

All along, I have been Oden's apologist and cheerleader. From the moment Portland drafted him, I've been both giddy with excitement and worried over his chances of failure. Oden has the body and gifts of a potentially great, Hall of Fame NBA center. But those kinds of players arrive once or twice in a generation. Merely hoping a big 7-foot center will be a legend, even with the pedigree of being a #1 pick, won't make it a reality. Couple Oden's still relatively uncertain future with that of Kevin Durant, the high scoring forward Portland passed up to pick Big Greg, and you have the added pressure of the Blazers again making a big mistake with their selection, as happened in 1984 with taking Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan. Durant, in his second season, now trails only LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade for this year's scoring lead.

It's come to the point where even a Blazer victory doesn't feel quite as satisfying if Oden doesn't perform. Sometimes it's because of foul trouble. Often, actually. Other times it's because of limited minutes due to coach Nate McMillan's decision making or Oden's additional aches and pains. This season, even after the joy of seeing him finally play after a year's delay, he has often been stifled.

Yet having said all this, I believe and will unapologetically argue that Oden is doing not just okay, but very well.

If you look at Oden's statistics this year, they don't initially seem very spectacular. For most of the season he has hovered around 8 or 9 points per game and 7 to 9 rebounds. As of today (March 29), he's officially at 8.8 points and 7.1 rebounds. But that is based on his playing an average of 22.1 minutes per game, less than half the possible 48 minutes of regulation time.

And when you switch from per-game statistics, which can be misleading because of varying minutes played, to the other principal statistical standard for the NBA, per-48-minutes, Oden emerges as already one of pro basketball's premiere centers in his first season.

Per 48 minutes of play, Greg Oden is averaging 19.1 points per game and 15.4 rebounds. Let's compare that to some of his Blazer teammates and fellow NBA centers.

In Portland, obviously Brandon Roy has a significantly higher points average at 29.2 points per game and 6.5 assists. But after that, Oden compares favorably to anyone on the team.

LaMarcus Aldridge, the team's second-leading scorer, averages 23.4 points and 9.5 rebounds per 48 minutes. His 18.1 points and 7.3 rebounds per game are much higher than Oden's, but Aldridge averages 37.1 minutes per game to Oden's 22.1. Erase that minutes-played discrepancy, and Oden scores only 4 points less per 48 minutes but nearly 6 more rebounds. And Aldridge is viewed as a budding star on the cusp of making the All-Star team. How come our supposed "flop" of a center is more efficient?

Oden's fellow Blazer center, Joel Pryzbilla, averages more rebounds per 48 minutes than Oden (17.1 versus 15.4), but only 11.1 points compared to Oden's 19.1.

Now let us see how Oden compares per 48 minutes of play to some of the NBA's great big men. Shaquille O'Neal is having a comeback season with the Suns even if they may miss the playoffs. He's averaging 18.1 points per game and 8.6 rebounds. That translates into 28.7 points per game and 13.7 rebounds.

Greg Oden is rebounding better than Shaquille O'Neal. This year.

Then there's Yao Ming. He's averaging 19.6 points and 9.8 rebounds in 33.4 minutes per game. Switch that to per 48 minutes of play, however, and Yao's numbers translate to 28.1 points and 13.9 rebounds.

Greg Oden is rebounding better than Yao Ming. This year.

How about Tim Duncan? He's really a power forward as much as a center, but a premiere big man of his time either way. Duncan this year is averaging 27.8 points and 14.8 rebounds per 48 minutes this year.

Greg Oden is rebounding better than Tim Duncan. This year.

And then there's Andrew Bynum. Arrogant Laker fans and members of the Los Angeles media have thoroughly enjoyed forwarding the idea that their young center is the true heir to the great all-time centers, not Oden. Nevermind that Bynum, despite also being injury prone and given to long stretches on the bench in street clothes. This year the Laker center is averaging 23.5 points and 13.5 rebounds per 48 minutes of play.

Greg Oden is rebounding better than Andrew Bynum. This year.

In fact, the only premiere big man I found who is out-rebounding Greg Oden this year per 48 minutes of play is Dwight Howard, who averages 28.2 points and 18.7 rebounds. Howard is in his 4th season. As new-generation centers go, he is the gold standard. But I'd argue Oden, if he can keep his injuries under control, is already showing that he can be in the same league with Howard, and that he already is in the same league, when you even out the amount of minutes played, as the other great centers in the game: O'Neal, Yao, Duncan and Bynum.

To be fair, looking at these per-48-minute statistics, Oden scores fewer points than all the big-time players I mentioned. In the future as he solidifies his presence at center for the Blazers, I see Oden's career being distinguished by defense and rebounding more than scoring. Imagining a prime for him in a few years, I see Greg Oden still averaging closer to 15 points per game than 20. But he could very well lead the NBA in rebounding. Then there's what a mammoth presence, both physically and psychologically, that he already is as a defensive presence. Let Oden get comfortable and relatively pain/injury free, and he could be a strong candidate for the league's Defensive Player of the Year award--multiple times.

I'm not saying that Greg Oden is the second coming of Bill Russell or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Wilt Chamberlain. But I also vehemently reject the idea that he is anything close to a bust.

Right now Portland has one of the two or three best guards in the NBA with Brandon Roy, a budding All-Star power forward in LaMarcus Aldridge, a young alley-oop and three-point specialist in Rudy Fernandez who showed in the gold medal Olympic game last summer that he can play against the best, and a talented deep and still-young supporting cast including lottery and first round picks like Travis Outlaw, Jerryd Bayless and Martell Webster. Greg Oden fits very, very well into that championship puzzle, especially with Pryzbilla there to relieve the pressure and provide a strong on-court role model setting screens and diving for loose balls.

One of the things I and many Blazer fans love about Oden is his gregariousness, his willingness to show his real self to reporters and fans with smiles and bouts of sadness alike. It's clear Oden was emboldened by the excitement of the draft, and resilient in returning from microfracture surgery, but has also been depressed and frustrated by criticisms. He understands people out there think he's a bust, and it gets to him - admittedly, perhaps more than it should.

But that's all the more reason I want to shout from the rooftops, "You're doing great, Greg!" Because you are. And you will.

February Twitterings

Since late January I've been making a slough of entries on Twitter. The site allows 140 characters per entry, which is challenging, but in return I've wound up chronicling my goings on from moment to moment much more than with blogging.

This is going to be long, but here are my Twitter posts from February. I've eliminated the entries that were solely links to other stuff.

February 28

Memo to arrogant GMC pickup driver who made me brake and skid atop the Fremont Bridge: hang up, use your blinker and drive. Or take a bus. 2:31PM. 

February 27

@djacobs Durant is a vastly more talented scorer and'll be 10x All Star. Oden is more likely to help Portland win games and championships. 1:13PM.

General Motors should dump Buick, not Saturn. Who under the age of 80 drives a Buick? And sell Saab back to Sweden so it won't be tainted. 12:43PM 

Seeing a Star Wars trading card on my bulletin board made me wonder: Did Chewbacca ever comb his face? 12:32PM

Bryce Brown of Wichita, are you on Twitter? If so, come play RB for the Ducks! To twist the "Wayne's World" phrase, we ARE worthy! 12:28PM

Disappointing Oden is out not only tonight but Sunday's game. Much worse: so-called Blazer fans doubting his future. 12:26PM. 

@zibapdx Paco Underhill is a brilliant analyst of shopping trends. Wish more architects studied their designs post-occupancy like this. 12:23PM.

Do The Doors constitute a guilty pleasure? Dusted off "Touch Me", "Unknown Soldier" and "LA Woman". Feel like I'm in high school. 12:22PM. 

@propagandery I agree that "We Built This City" is horrible, but I stand up for the artistic value of "Everybody Wang Chung Tonight". 11:33AM

February 26

People are so bad at remembering to re-record voice mail greetings after the temporary "I'll be on vacation" one no longer applies. 4:55PM 

Can't help but chuckle at "Hip Hop Hooray" coming on the stereo via iPod shuffle. What ever happened to Naughty By Nature? "Hey, ho, hey!" 4:24PM

Had a delicious lunch at Malay Satay Hut of bok choy with garlic sauce and Malaysian pork chops and roti canai flatbread. Cheers, Matt. 4:21PM

February 25

Blazers still can't get a win on their Texas Triangle road trip, but it's valuable lessons for our young Fellowship of the 2012 Ring. 10:34PM

Diners, Drive-ins & Drives is one of my favorite shows, but Guy's Big Bite with an audience and buffoonery leaves me as cold as Emeril does. 10:32PM

I can't stand those e-Trade commercials with the talking baby brokers, but I confess the FreeCreditReport.com jingles are a guilty pleasure. 10:29PM

"All Cats Are Grey" by The Cure playing on iPod shuffle as I fry sausage for a homemade pizza. Not huge Cure fan, but adore this song. 4:43PM.

Economy may be down, but Stumptown beans are now a dollar cheaper at New Seasons. Watched rolling clouds through a skylight while grinding. 3:57PM

February 24

Obama did great tonight, but the theater of presidents addressing congress is funny--so many standing ovations always cheapens their impact. 11:08PM

Doesn't Ruthie know I JUST cleaned her litter box? Can't I bask in a job well done for a few minutes? 1:59PM

Why do double-negatives and the non-existent word "ain't" have to be the accepted norm in all rock and pop songs? 1:56PM

Say what? Editors want additional work done after I turn in a draft? 12:17PM

I was entranced by Sonny Rollins' "Saxophone Colossus" & missed the first 30 minutes of Inter Milan vs. Manchester United. But still 0-0. 12:16PM

I jinxed yesterday's springlike rain-sun mix by mentioning it. Now it's just raining. Still better than ice and snow, though. 11:43AM

February 23

Making my signature spaghetti sauce and listening to Modern Jazz Quartet's "Concorde". Really I prefer "Django", but they're all sublime. 6:23PM

@nwfilmcenter I agree: Stanich's has some of Portland's most exquisite burgers. Also love The Red Coach and Skyline. 6:20PM

Spring in Portland is officially arriving: 5 cycles of alternating rain and sunshine this morning alone. 12:37PM

My new temporary favorite jazz tune: a cover of Brubeck's "Take Five" by Bahamanian saxophonist Ozzie Hall. Way more soulful than original. 11:15AM

Blazers quietly won 3rd in a row last night, and I loved reading Sports Illustrated's Brandon Roy profile: "New Star, Old Soul." 11:09AM

The Oscar telecast overall wasn't the major re-think they promised. Stroke of genius to have past winners honor all the nominees, though. 11:07AM

Steady diet of espresso and 70s Bahamas R&B to kick-start this Monday morning after some late-night writing to meet deadline. 11:06AM

February 22

Hooray! I was rooting for Danny Boyle even aside from "Slumdog". When I interviewed him a couple years ago he was super nice and genuine. 8:24 PM

I can just see the "Slumdog" score musicians' next project: a Paul Simon album. 8:00 PM

It's fitting Jerry Lewis is being honored at the Oscars. His telethons are the only broadcast that's longer. Of course I'm still watching. 7:46 PM

"Great, everybody's crying now and I have to go on," --Bill Maher after Ledger's win. Very happy he won, deservedly. Love RDjr & JB though. 7:20 PM

It's been 90 minutes and one major award (supporting actress) has been given out. So I have less patience for H. Jack's 2nd musical number. 6:54 PM

Still many a tad too many montages though. It's like a higher-class TV Guide channel. 6:28 PM

I can't believe what a great start the Oscars are off to. Jackman's musical number was fun, but the lead up to Cruz's win was fantastic. 5:51 PM

Seems like Slumdog is poised to win tonight, along with Ledger, maybe Cruz, Winslet. For me it's all about song medleys & accountant intros. 2:46 PM

"You know I gots to looked dipped in my fresh gear....who the hell you think I am, Mr. Belvedere?" --Phife Dawg  2:42 PM

A late start on the 3 stories I have due tomorrow after sleeping in until 11:30. Enjoyed friend Ned's b-day party Sat at Thatch Tiki Bar. 2:39 PM

February 21

@shawnlevy I'd give Professor Wegner as long as he wants - he's tenured. Any team whose down-year is 5th in Premiership is OK with me. 11:48 AM

February 20

Caught the first 20 minutes of "The Conversation" on TCM. Wow what a spectacularly great movie. That and "Apocolypse Now" are my FFC faves. 7:43PM

Busy w/work all weekend, but tonight it's slippers & track suit for NBA and Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives. "This apple butter is on point!" 7:42PM

Word has come from New Seasons that my Friday night pulled-pork sandwich with slaw is being assembled momentarily. Baking a box cake later. 6:46PM

"Don't Worry Baby" just played on my iPod. How angelic that B Wilson. Perfect accompaniment to starting a batch of frozen fries in the oven. 6:46PM

I love how Bond movies are showing almost 24/7 on cable now. Valarie's right that Roger Moore acts with his eyebrows. Connery's nastier. 2:44PM

Off to meet some Chicago Architectural Foundation people scouting Portland for a members' visit. Steered them to Ace Stumptown, naturally. 2:43PM

Paul is every bit the genius John was, by the way. Ringo, not a genius but love his simple root drumming. George very very good. 2:42PM

First "Magical Mystery Tour" and now "Rubber Soul" as I edit photos from this morning's visit to the restored Calumet Building. 2:34PM

Saw an ad in the paper for Regis Philbin coming to Spirit Mountain Casino. Even HE can't be enthusiastic about that gig. Final answer, Reg? 10:01AM

February 19

Suddenly out of nowhere, an insatiable urge to hear "Kings of the Wild Frontier" by Adam & The Ants. Actually, it's satiable--listening now. 4:22PM

I'm fine with the Trail Blazers standing pat as the trade deadline passed. Was worried about chemistry or losing Travis Outlaw anyway. 4:09PM

While a new door handle was being installed on my car, I took MAX downtown for delightful food-cart Bratwurst and a perfect Spella espresso. 4:07PM

February 18

One silver lining to the current economic cloud: Chrysler is reportedly discontinuing the PT Cruiser, the world's ugliest car. 5:28PM

February 17

Celebrated competing 5th of 8 stories due over 8 days with Toll House cookies . Now to my French crime novel 'Total Chaos' before dozing. 11:45PM

After Art Blakey's "A Night In Tunisia" as work music yesterday, today it's St. Etienne's "Foxbase Alpha". 1:00PM

@propagandery You are SO right! Thank-you waves are mandatory if someone's let you into their lane. 10:26AM

February 16

Interviewed a developer and architect in Pearl/downtown earlier, now home roasting a chicken with rosemary & listening to Throwing Muses. 5:13PM

February 15

Couldn't help but stay up and watch Antonioni's awesome "Blow-Up" on TCM. I want to be the young David Hemmings character, only not a jerk. 11:38PM

Q-Tip, where have you been? Your first album in six years is terrific. All we need is Phife Dawg and Tribe Called Quest would be back. 9:42PM

Oh good, I've finished my story due tomorrow morning in time for Iron Chef and some highlights of Brandon Roy's 14 all-star-game points. 9:41PM

Why am I still not fully awake almost three hours after rising? Wasn't 10 hours enough, or was it too much? Hello 4th espresso. 1:08PM

Yum, cooked up fettucini with gorgonzola cream sauce (old fave), then brownies with fresh whipped cream for dessert. Avoiding tight pants. 12:02AM

Does a CD of Bahamanian funk from the early 70s classify as an impulse purchase? 12:00AM

February 14

Overheard at Powell's: someone confessing reticence over library books because of too many germs. Okay, Howard Hughes. 2:30PM

So Durant had 46 in the rookie challenge last night, Oden a DNP with a bruised knee. Still believe in Big Fella, but insecurity creeping in. 12:33PM

It's worth my current food coma to have eggs, sausage, and shredded hash browns (that's particularly key) at Johnny B's Family Restaurant. 12:32PM

February 13

Receiving a lift from listening to a demo of "I'm Down" on i-Pod shuffle. It's got to be one of the best early Beatles tunes. 2:12PM

I thought Lavazza espresso would do in a pinch at QFC, but after this it's strictly Stumptown, Portland Roasting or another local roaster. 1:21PM

1:30 meeting cancelled, so I'm free to stay in sweats listening to Thelonious Monk and the Pet Shop Boys (separately). 1:14PM

February 12

Listening to Tom Waits' "Rain Dogs" as I work. "They all started out with bad directions....All the donuts have names like prostitutes." 2:55PM

Durant drives the lane to the basket, slams into Oden and...offensive foul!!! 17 and 12 for the big fella, plus much more non-stat impact. 11:19AM

February 11

Blazers-Thunder rematch tonight. As the Clash sing, "Waitin' for the clamp-down!" Come on big fella, reject Durant and wag a Mutombo finger! 2:10PM

David Lynch: "We are like the spider. We weave our life & move along it. We are like the dreamer who dreams & then lives in the dream." 2:06PM

T-minus 48 hours until I have three different articles due. And for one, an architect profile I haven't even interviewed anyone yet! 11:34AM

February 10

I am so damn fed up with hostile anonymous commenters on my Portland Architecture blog. "Cronyism? Cocktail party banter?" FY, you MF CS! 3:31PM

iPod shuffle just played the "Happy Days" theme. Thumbs up and an "Eeyyy!" to that. Just wish I looked a little less like Ron Howard. 2:50PM

I can't believe it's fucking snowing again. This better not stick. (But actually I'm in a good mood otherwise - just made an espresso.) 1:36PM

The Ducks could win a coolest-football-player's-name award for a wide receiver recruit announced yesterday: Lavasier Tuinei. (Allez, TD!) 12:36PM

After perusing the NY Times website with another Obama headline (about the stimulus bill) tonight, I'm still pinching myself he's president. 10:33PM

February 9

@shawnlevy Scolari's firing says more about Chelsea's psycho owner than Blues' quality on the pitch. They never should have let Jose go. 12:39PM

If all the peanut butter is tainted, we should follow France's lead: the chocolate sandwich (no jelly required). 12:36PM

Grammy awards last night - the most irrelevant of all the irrelevant awards shows. Has the best album EVER won best album? 12:35PM

February 8

A little scared about Blazer trade rumors. Not ready to part with Travis Outlaw, and not sure how Amare or Richard Jefferson would fit in.11:08AM

February 7

Saw a work of true genius last night: "Ali Babba Bunny". "Open...Sasparilla? Duh, open...Saskatchewan?...Hassan chop!" 12:29PM

@shawnlevy Arsene and the Gooners will be back. But Jose Mourinho won't, I'm afraid! 12:22PM

February 6

The icing on the cake for tonight? Well, probably the fact that I'm literally about to ice the yellow cake I just made. 8:47PM

Durant wins this round (by an admittedly sizable margin), but Oden was still the right pick for Portland - absolutely no doubt whatsoever! 8:43PM

February 5

I feel vastly more let down by Christian Bale than Sam Adams (and not by Michael Phelps at all). 9:45AM

February 4

Recipe for lunchtime success: take 3 pork tacos from nearby taco truck, eat with plenty of lime juice and hot sauce. Kitty is jealous. 2:36PM

Not at all bothered by Obama appointee problems. Par for the course with a new prez. B-rock still walks on water in my book. Easily. 9:58AM

Blazers vs. Mavs tonight, and I desperately want to see Oden posterize Nowitski. Meanwhile, Clyde listed on ESPN as #5 dunker all-time! 9:57AM

Signing day arrives and Oregon nabbed 4-star receiver Diante Jackson, but overall class is disappointingly down. May not matter, a la OSU. 9:54AM

February 3

@tonyfaulkner Give Obama some time, Tony. WAY WAY WAY too early to be disappointed. I think he's doing superb. 12:25PM

Christian Bale: biggest jerk in the universe? First loved, now hate him. 12:18PM

February 1

Already watched way too much TV with game, but now my favorite show is on: Iron Chef. And a Batali episode, no less. Allez cuisine. 9:53PM

Wooo-hooooo!!!! My lifelong favorite NFL team just won the Super Bowl. What a roll - Ducks in Civil War, Obama, Holiday Bowl, now this! 9:52PM

The Steel Curtain riseth to claim gridiron glory. Go Pittsburgh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I'm getting pumped for game time.) 2:52PM

Fellowship of the Blazer Ring continues ascendancy: easy win over Jazz last night. Oden in foul trouble, but Vanilla Godzilla stellar. 11:38AM

Damn it all, Oregon lost to OSU in b-ball. And I hate how the Beavers' coach is so flippin' likable! Where's that bastard Ralph Miller? 11:36AM

Wow, Nadal beat Federer in the Aussie final. Not a total surprise, but Fed seemed on a roll. Gotta love a guy (Fed) who sobs afterward. 11:34AM

Ah, 10 hours of sleep. It's not 11, but it'll surely do. And no recurring late for the airport dreams! 11:32AM

The recess wars

In today’s (February 24) New York Times, Tara Parker-Pope reports on new research suggesting that play and down time may be as important to a child’s academic experience as reading, science and math, and that regular recess, fitness or nature time can influence behavior, concentration and even grades.

The article reminded me that back in elementary school, the only two times I was ever sent to the principal’s office were because of recesses taken away.

The first time, in fourth grade music class, the teacher created a contest pitting boys against girls, with the winners getting an extra recess. I don’t remember the contest, but I was absolutely livid that, through no fault of my own, half the class was enjoying the bliss of being outside to run free and play kickball while my half was trapped inside the classroom.

I was still upset that night about the lost recess when my dad came up with a funny but ingenious and instructive suggestion: start a petition drive to demand the boys be given a recess too. That’s what I did the next morning. All the boys in my class were only too happy to lend their John Hancocks. But our teacher, Mrs. Dye, was threatened by my initiative. She saw me as a smart but brash trouble-maker and promptly sent me to the principal’s office—a punishment in the highest order. Luckily Mr. Adams saw things differently. He was impressed that a 10-year-old kid would start a petition drive—as he should have been. It’s one thing for the music teacher to use recess as a reward, but how could a fourth grade teacher be angered by a little kid embracing nonviolent democratic protest? Apparently Mrs. Dye still lives in town and eats at my dad’s restaurant; he says she still asks about me. So I know she was a good soul—I know it now, that is.

The other recess-oriented time I got in trouble was at the end of an otherwise normal morning recess. A couple students ignored the teacher’s whistle and didn’t want to line up to go back inside. So Mrs. Ellingson, in a fit of disciplinary action, announced right then and there, before we’d even made it back to class, that the next day’s recess was cancelled.

I’d dutifully lined up at the end of recess, and so had about 28 of 30 kids. So without even thinking, I blurted out, “What a bitch!” Mrs. Ellingson didn’t hear, but a smarmy classmate of mine, Johnny F. (I don’t want to mention his last name, because he’s now an ex-con), tattled on me. And while I was indeed guilty of using an expletive in reference to my teacher, it wasn’t lost on me that Mrs. Ellingson was immediately willing to convict me based on Johnny’s hearsay evidence.

That afternoon as lunch ended, the other kids headed out to the playground and I stayed with Ellingson in her classroom as part of a detention accompanied by her personal guilt trip. She also sent a letter to my parents.

It’s true I shouldn’t have called this poor elementary school teacher trying to get a handle on her rowdy class a bitch. I can also appreciate that the lost recess she tried to invoke was a lesson to us fifth graders that we were a part of society, and that one person’s ill-advised actions threatened the harmony of us all.

Even so, recess was sacred to me as an elementary school kid. I loved recess. I waited for recess. I needed recess. Badly. So reading today that there’s scientific evidence backing up the cognitive, physical and emotional value in recess, I felt vindicated. Maybe I was a little pain in the butt to those nice teachers at Newby Elementary. My cousin Anna is now a student teacher at that same school where I spent six of my formative years, and I’d certainly sympathize with her if some bratty kid had the audacity to call her a bitch. Hell, I’d want to drop kick the little one like I was Ray Guy. But I still take pride in having the instinct to stand up for my recess rights when, in both cases, I had them coming.

Sara and 25 things

My sister Sara has an op-ed in yesterday's (February 18) Christian Science Monitor. The topic is the lists people are circulating on Facebook to each other of 25 random facts about themselves. This is actually the second Monitor op-ed Sara has written on social networking. She's also written for the paper about hip-hop culture and, way back in September of 2007, the rising cultural cache and populism of then-presidential candidate and senator Barack Obama. Sara has also written op-eds for the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. And no, her last name is not Tenenbaum.

I'd seen several people's lists on Facebook and had decided not to do one myself. But then after Sara's article came about, I changed my mind and decided to give it a try. The list, like a lot of people's, I think, is a weird combination of unimportant small details with major cogs in the biographical machine:

1.    I’ve slept with the same ratty, ugly leopard-skin polyester blanket for over 30 years. My grandma made it for me when I was 5 or 6 years old, and I often wrap it around my head (with just the nose and mouth showing) after sunrise to keep the light out. My college roommate used to call me “Mother Theresa”.

2.    I’m a descendant of both Civil War general Robert E. Lee and first First Lady Martha Washington, but not George Washington (Martha had children from a previous marriage.) Another descendant of mine, Solomon Fitzhugh, was a signee of the Oregon constitution in 1859 that brought US state status. But in 1860 Fitzhugh, also an election delegate, additionally tried to hide out with a handful of other Democrats to prevent a quorum that would give Oregon’s electoral votes to Abraham Lincoln.

3.    My favorite piece of journalism I’ve ever written is probably the interview I did with director David Lynch in 2001. He’s pretty much my favorite director, and we got to spend a couple hours talking about movies in the painting studio in his backyard. Lynch also urinated into a sink in the studio during our interview.

4.    I’ve been to the emergency room numerous times for freak accidents, like a sliced finger (from a meat-slicer accident), facial burns from French press coffee (the apparatus flipped into the air when I tried to push down the plunger), and heart palpitations I thought were a heart attack. But I’ve never had a broken bone or stayed overnight in a hospital.

5.    One of my grandpas landed at Normandy in World War II under George Patton’s brigade (albeit with a quartermaster’s typewriter rather than a rifle), and the other served in the Pacific, including time on an aircraft carrier sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea, and another ship before the war that was part of the Emelia Earhart search party. During the Cold War, my dad analyzed spy plane and satellite reconnaissance photos. I’m proud of that heritage even though I’m more or less a pacifist.

6.    Valarie and I met during my last week of college, separated for 10 months when I went back to Oregon, and since then have been together for 14 years and counting.

7.    I’m such a rabid Oregon Ducks fan that at age 8, after screaming my head off at the Oregon-Oregon State football game, I was told by the Beaver fan in front of me, “Little kid, I hope you freeze to death!” Sometimes I almost feel like my whole existence is about hanging around long enough in this world to see the Blazers or Ducks win a championship.

8.    It’s been said that I could subsist entirely on spaghetti, espresso and chocolate chip cookies.

9.    I dearly love travel and have visited something like eight countries in the last four years, but I always get inconsolably depressed right before leaving because I’m a creature of habit and it’s traumatic changing my routine.

10. My favorite wardrobe item is Adidas track jackets. Valarie works for the company so I have an embarrassment of riches in that department. I can choose my track jacket color by mood – it’s yellow today.

11. I was the only child in my family and my mom’s entire side of the family for the first twelve years of my life, and then my mom and her two siblings had five kids between them over the next five years - including Sara, who wrote the article that inspired this post.

12. After Valarie and my immediate family, the loves of my life are Charlie and Nancy, the tabby and German Shepherd I had as a kid, Cindy, my sister’s childhood dog, and Ruthie, the fat tabby we have now. People are over-rated compared to cats and dogs. Seriously.

13. “Star Wars” and “2001: A Space Odyssey” are probably my two all-time favorite films, and yet I’ve never considered myself a science fiction fan. I also got to write two of favorite film essays, both for Salon's short-lived "Masterpiece" series, on these movies.

14. I have a dangerous addiction to driving fast and treating even the shortest grocery-store trip as a race with other drivers. In high school I raced a friend in our mom’s family cars and almost took out a family playing volleyball in their front yard when I slid into a corner at 70MPH. Instead, I went into a ditch and caught some Dukes of Hazzard-level air.

15. I am terrible at waiting for a table at a restaurant. They could take all day once I’m seated to bring the food and I wouldn’t care. But if forced to wait more than 60 seconds for a table, I start to feel like a refugee that diners are ridiculing from the comfort of their seats.

16. I used to be quite a sleepwalker or sleep-talker. My dad once found me on the floor scratching at the back door, saying I was “Looking for Nancy.” (Our dog.) In college, my roommate awakened to me standing in front of his bed in the middle of the night in my boxer shorts saying, inexplicably, “I gotta get out of here. It’s 62.”

17. As a kid, I was so obsessed with football that I memorized not only the score of every Super Bowl, but the MVP and stadium too. Super Bowl IX? Easy – Steelers over Vikings, 16-6 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans. Franco Harris the MVP with a then-Super Bowl record 158 yards. (And I didn’t look any of that up.)

18. Although I work as an art critic, I was actually diagnosed with a mild case of color blindness as a young child.

19. I’ve worn the same basic model of Casio digital watch since the latter half of elementary school.

20. Last night on TV, Tony Bourdain was asking everyone, “What taste reminds you of home?” I’d have to say the wheat bread at my dad’s restaurant, The Sage, which he’s operated since 1977.

21. I have a phobia surrounding frogs, fish and mice dating to weird early childhood encounters with each: a frog in my bathtub, mice loose in the house, and a fish that flapped in my face from my dad’s pole in our small rowboat.

22. When Tim Russert died last year, I thought back to being in the elevator with him at NBC (while I was working an office temp job) the day after the 1996 election. He accidentally got off on the wrong floor and had to rush to get back in the elevator. “Long night last night?” I asked. He just laughed and said with a big exhale, “Yeah.”

23. I've known a couple of my friends that I'm still in contact with regularly, Ned and Paul, for over 30 years now. Ned I met in preschool at Country School, on a farm outside McMinnville. Paul, pictured here in a shot from gradeschool, I've known since Mrs. McCallister's first grade class.

24. My western zodiac sign is Taurus and my Chinese zodiac sign is the rat. According to one book I read that combined readouts for both zodiacs, the deliberative, solitude-seeking Taurus nicely mitigates the rat’s piano-wire nerves.

25. The first time I went trick-or-treating as a toddler at my grandparents’ house, I was well coached by my mom to say “Trick or treat,” but instead stammered and said, “I want candy!”

"Across the Sound" at PIFF

It was with great excitement that I got the word a few weeks ago that my latest short film, Across the Sound, has been selected for the Portland International Film Festival.

With about a four-minute run time, the film is the latest in a long series of short travelogues I've made over the last few years. When I'm traveling, I usually keep a small video camera handy to capture incidental moments. I never shoot any footage specifically intending or expecting it to be a film, but instead enjoy just shooting video as a kind of anxious traveler's pacifier, and then, sometimes months or even years later, playing around with the footage to try and achieve some sort of simple feeling or texture.

Across the Sound chronicles a ferry ride that Valarie and I took last summer from Victoria to Seattle, returning home to Portland from a long weekend. When we booked the ferry tickets, we were expecting some sort of ship large enough to hold cars and a couple hundred people. Instead, we climbed aboard the 'Victoria Clipper', a small cruiser that raced across the water. Suddenly Puget Sound and the Straits of Juan de Fuca were going by rapidly.

Across the Sound from Brian Libby on Vimeo.

When editing the footage at home, I struggled with what speed to present it at. Sometimes I like to slow footage of the landscape going by (from a boat, train or car) at molasses-slow speed to emphasize how one is giving in to a different pace and environment. Other times I like using time-lapse to speed up footage and show the landscape going by quickly, to both quicken the feel of the film and to get a sense of the topography or weather changing.

With Across the Sound, I started by making the footage really fast, then slowed it down to near normal speed, which is what you see here. I also considered slowing the footage to slower than normal, and actually have still contemplated going back and re-editing the film to do so. What you see now, though, is the ferry traveling at about 125 percent of normal. The broader idea, though, is that as a viewer you are losing yourself in the meditative pattern and ambiance of the water going by. Even if you find this video really boring, my idea is for it to be a kind of lullaby. That's also why I used some existing music by one of my favorite musicians, French electronica artist Colleen. The music is from an album called Colleen et les Boîtes à Musique, in which she loops and combines several music boxes. I like the idea of the waves in Across the Sound combining with children's music boxes a world away to put the viewer in a kind of happy trance.

The film is part of a program called "Short Cuts II: Made In Oregon", screening at 11:45AM on February 8 and 21 at the Portland Art Museum's Whitsell Auditorium.

Listening to Brotherman

I love browsing at Jackpot Records in Portland’s Hawthorne district. It doesn’t have the biggest inventory, but the collection is well chosen and there are plenty of listening stations to try music. That’s where I happened upon Brotherman, the 1975 soundtrack for a movie that was never made. (The accompanying image was commissioned by the record company when the album was released for the first time in 2008.)

As one promotional blurb put it, the character of Brotherman “was a pusher that became a preacher. A gangster pimp serving soup from the trunk of his Coup Deville. A mutant cross between Robin Hood and Friar Tuck. Everyman, our man on the street, Brotherman.” Prior to the script being finished, the producers commissioned an original soundtrack to be performed by The Final Solution, a fledgling vocal group from Chicago’s west side.

The Final Solution is an unfortunate name, the one also given to Hitler’s extermination plans during World War II. But, as with Joy Division, another band whose name recalls the Nazis, the music transcends whatever you call it. Whereas Joy Division’s music was morose, though, the Brotherman soundtrack is joyous. I’ve listened to the entire album something like 25 or 30 times in the few weeks since purchasing it on a whim at Jackpot, and I have to restrain myself from listening even more – and this from a guy who usually never wants to listen to the same song more than once per day.

Lots of blaxploitation movies had better soundtracks than scripts. Other than authentic films of the ‘60s and ‘70s made by black filmmakers like Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, most of the big classics like Superfly, Cleopatra Jones, The Mack and Shaft were the productions of white Hollywood producers and filmmakers – hence the “exploitation” part of the blaxploitation term. They were stronger on the style and charisma of their stars, actors like Pam Grier and Fred Williamson, and got more out of their driving funk soundtracks, than on artful filmmaking.

I wasn’t listening to much funk or R&B when it was originally made in the early ‘70s. I was only born in 1972. But my mom had an abiding affection for Stevie Wonder, and in our house records like Talking Book or Songs in the Key of Life played more often than anything but The Beatles. Even if I never grew to love Stevie’s music from later in his career (the ‘80s and beyond), those 70s albums, particularly Innervisions and Music of My Life, have acted as a point of entry into a lot more Nixon and Ford-era R&B and funk. At some point I fell in love with Marvin Gaye’s What’s Goin’ On, Shuggie Otis’ Inspiration Information, The Best of The Meters, and Funkadelic’s One Nation Under A Groove. I’m certainly no expert on 70s funk, soul or R&B, but I’ve realized it’s a passion. This music, along with disco, is a direct antecedent to hip-hop. As a result, these are also some of the last years that the majority of African-American musicians were focused on making some form of singing verse-chorus-verse songs with instrumental backup. Believe me, the arrival of hip-hop and the Pandora’s box of sampling that accompanied the genre’s arrival have been wonderful. Where would I be without my copy of Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory? Or De La Soul, Sugarhill Records, Erik B & Rakim, Tricky, Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys? (Okay, I'm dating myself.) But soon after the 1970s, soul began a slow descent away from its place in the spotlight or, in other cases, assimilated into saccharine top-40 pop music. I can’t think of much music outside of hip-hop that has simultaneously this much grit and swing, hopeful verve and real-world resonance.

To my ear, Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly is the gold standard of blaxploitation soundtracks, and Brotherman seems to fit in that tradition. There is a driving beat with jangly guitars, banjos (!), and curvy, swinging drums. A few years ago a musician friend described wanting to sample this certain style in a dance music loop. The word “curvy” was key in his description: the idea of a drummer of that era of rock, pop or R&B/funk favoring what would today be characterized as too many drum-fills and having a subtly fluctuating tempo—the difference between a human and a synthetically produced beat. If you like what Thelonious Monk does in his brilliant jazz tunes, for example, playfully tiptoeing in and out of the tempo on piano, this kind of drumming gives off a similar feeling. It’s by no means exclusive to funk, for drummers like Keith Moon of The Who or Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix experience typify the curvy, nearly out-of-control drumming style. But I appreciate it the most listening to Brotherman.

One online review described the Brotherman soundtrack as “modestly constructed, featuring none of the indulgences common in blaxploitation soundtracks. There are no orchestrations, horn sections, or sprawling arrangements, and only [the title song] "Brotherman" itself contains obvious blaxploitation signifiers, opening with ‘Runnin' game was his thing,’ while ‘Where There's a Will’ acts as the requisite self-motivation track. Most of the remainder deals in affairs of the heart. Everything is conveyed with sweet group harmonies and gently churning arrangements where a pleasantly flicking rhythm guitar is a near constant.

According to the Urban Dictionary, the term “brotherman” is “a word used to describe an extremely ‘down to earth’ individual. Brotherman can be used simultaneously with the first name of a person in an effort to show they share a strong mutual bond. A group of cool people can be deemed brothers as they share a strong brotherly bond. Brotherman, are you and Brother Dabin going over to PQ's house to hang with the brothers from KBC?"

Perhaps it’s crass of me, but even though I love the music for the music itself, I can’t help but facetiously wonder if Barack Obama is on some level the Brotherman hero of the song. The Final Solution came from Chicago and are part of that city’s burgeoning funk and soul scene of the 1970s, when Obama would have first settled there. And considering the astonishing sight of watching him actually become our 44th president certainly has elevated Obama to superhero status in my book – even more so given the implosion of newly sworn in Portland mayor Sam Adams’ implosion in a sex scandal. Brotherman Obama—and I mean that term as a compliment in the highest order, not a trite racial epithet, of course—is definitely the guy to save the day: a man of great intellect and oratory skill who is still in touch with the streets; his first job after graduating Columbia was a community organizer in the tough streets of Chicago. I guess I can’t help but imagine this political godsend’s rise with just a little bit of extra curvy drumming in the background and a pulsating bass propelling the action.

Most of all, the Brotherman soundtrack feels joyous to me. Maybe it’s the gospel influence of the vocal harmonies populating nearly all of the songs. Maybe it’s just the cumulative effect of this up-tempo sound with an expressive Mowtown-esque array of instruments. But somehow a record that most people would approach tongue-in-cheek (a blaxploitation soundtrack-fun! And one never made—weird!) is to me a set of songs that sink deep inside, like the heat from a warm bath. Inevitably a lot of my affection for this period of music is based on it coming from those first years of life when one’s brain is such a sponge. But you wait and wait for albums that you love like this, that you start at the beginning as soon as the last song ends, that you can listen to in a dark room, lying on the floor with full attention devoted, or that can become wallpaper while you’re, say for example, writing a blog post. For all I know, people reading this who listen to Brotherman wouldn’t find it anything special. But for me, this dealer-turned-preacher distributing soup from his Coup de Ville is, at least until I inevitably move onto another album, a kind of long-lost sibling.

More than a feeling: a redemption

For the last several days I’ve had a cheesy classic rock song stuck in my head, the kind that I used to listen to on KGON radio back in high school before I’d discovered indie or punk: “More Than A Feeling” by Boston. It’s because I have been compulsively watching and re-watching a highlight montage on YouTube of the annual Civil War football game.

Over the course of four minutes and forty seconds, this ordinarily cringe-inducing cliché of a song now suddenly sounds like Mozart to my years because of the footage it’s paired with: a 65-38 Ducks win against Oregon State.

As this highlight reel shows, it’s astonishing just how many big plays there are for the Ducks. And all against a Beaver team that was playing for their first trip to the Rose Bowl since 1965.

There is Jeremiah Johnson’s 83-yard touchdown, featuring one last flawless rendition of his signature move over the last four years: a wicked stiff-arm to fend off the Beaver defense on the way to the end zone. It brought back memories of his textbook stiff-arm against Michigan last year in Ann Arbor. Johnson has been a superb back for Oregon but largely overshadowed in past years by Jonathan Stewart. I think he'll play on Sunday for years.

Following Johnson’s long touchdown a few plays later, as the Beavers try to come back from a 30-10 second quarter deficit, there is Walter Thurmond’s 40 yard interception return for another touchdown. I mean, it was 37-17 at halftime! Who scores 37 in a half, let alone in your rivalry game?

But it just goes on and on.  There is Jeremiah Masoli’s 14-yard touchdown, Ed Dickson’s 45-yard TD reception after miraculously squeezing all but untouched between two OSU defenders, and then Spencer Paysinger’s interception return for a score to seal the game once and for all. There is even a flea-flicker where quarterback Jeremiah Masoli tosses the ball to backup quarterback Darron Thomas on a reverse play, and Thomas then stops to throw a successful 35-yard pass to Jeff Maehl.

In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have imagined the Ducks erupting for 65 points in the Civil War against a Beaver defense ranked 2nd in the conference, all when Oregon State has the Rose Bowl on the line. And naturally, besides all the big plays that delivered Oregon’s domination, stitched into the experience is the shock and dejection of the Beaver fans seeing their conference championship slip away.

I’m not quite as much of a Beaver hater as I used to be. This game was for me much more about simply winning the Civil War, and reversing the tide of a two-game losing streak to the Beavers. But considering how media outlets were already projecting OSU for the Rose Bowl, and fans were already making plane reservations for Los Angeles, I had to laugh thinking of Oregon’s bruising running back LaGarrette Blount on the sideline at game’s end, yelling to the crowd in his southern accent, “Ain’t no Rose Bowl ta-day!”

Although “More Than a Feeling” plays on the YouTube highlight package, my mind has also returned often to the tune of the University of Georgia fight song playing on TV during their game with Georgia Tech earlier that same day. I don’t know what the actual fight song lyrics are, but they were to the tune of the old religious song "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" with its refrain, “Glory, Glory Hallelujah!” That seemed a more fitting expression as the final seconds ticked away in Corvallis.

For many seasons in Mike Bellotti’s tenure, Oregon has started strong only to finish with mounting losses, usually due to injury. Last year we were ranked #2 in both major polls before Dennis Dixon’s season-ending knee injury and ensuing three-game losing streak to end the regular season. In 2006 a #11 national ranking (again in both the AP and USA Today coaches’ polls) on October 2 gave way to being far outside of the top 25 after a string of losses culminating in an embarrassing Las Vegas bowl drubbing from BYU. In 2002 we started 6-0 and earned a #6 AP ranking, but wound up 7-6 and losing the lowly Seattle Bowl to lowly Wake Forest in pouring rain.  Back in 1998 undefeated Oregon took a #11 Associated Press ranking to UCLA against the #5 Bruins but lost both the game and star running back Ruben Droughns; a Las Vegas Bowl thrashing of Air Force was the consolation prize.

So obviously when the Ducks go undefeated after November 1 in the home stretch like this year’s team, culminating with a Civil War win, it’s something to savor. The Ducks also hadn’t won in Corvallis since 1996, Bellotti’s second season as head coach. I remember listening to that game in my Jersey City, New Jersey apartment using my roommate’s newfangled “Internet” connection. (It was a real eye-opener at the time to what the Web could become.)

And Oregon didn’t just win the Civil War. They won big. They destroyed the Beavers. They broke their hearts. They toyed with them. They caused Beaver fans en masse to discard and trample the roses they’d brought to the game.

Maybe Oregon State does deserve to make it to the Rose Bowl some day. But I said it all along after they beat USC earlier in the year and began their much-hyped march toward a possible conference crown: the Beavers were a good team, but definitely not that good. They played one truly superb half against USC, thanks to the virtuoso talents of freshman running back Jaquizz Rogers. But otherwise, USC was clearly and easily the best team in the Pac-10, as evidenced by their ultimate 11-1 record compared to Oregon State going 8-4. The team OSU would have faced in the Rose Bowl, Penn State, already demolished the Beavers by several touchdowns earlier this year. If the Beavers should go to the Rose Bowl, it should be when they’re the best team in the conference. The 2000 OSU team that beat Joey Harrington’s Ducks en route to a Fiesta Bowl blowout of Notre Dame and #4 final national ranking, for example, was (Rogers notwithstanding) vastly better than this year’s Beaver team.

Meanwhile, thankful and elated as I am over the Civil War win, I can’t help but think what might have been for the Ducks had they not taken several games to get an experienced quarterback going. The year started in training camp with Nate Costa as the starter, then after his season-ending injury it became Justin Roper’s team, only to give way to junior-college-transfer sophomore Jeremiah Masoli for most of the campaign. After starting 4-0, Oregon lost 37-32 to Boise State (which finished undefeated this year) after being down to their fourth quarterback, freshman Darron Thomas—a guy who had never played college football before. The Ducks got pummeled by USC, and there’s no “what if” associated with that game. But soon after that game, with Masoli still struggling to learn the passing game, they lost by 10 against Cal. If you put an experienced, healthy Masoli or even Roper in for the duration of those Boise State and Cal games, it’s very possible Oregon would have won both—certainly against Boise State. Suddenly, that would have made the Ducks 11-1. They still wouldn’t have gone to the Rose Bowl, but might a BCS invitation have come? Or if USC had completed their comeback attempt against OSU and the Ducks had one loss, the Trojans would have gone to the national championship and the Ducks would have been back in Pasadena for the first time in 14 years (and only the second time in 41 years).

Even so, the way this season turned out isn’t about what might have been. It’s about some very impressive, cathartic wins culminating in the best of them all: a 65-point eruption to beat the Beavers in Corvallis.

I also can’t view this season without thinking about last season, which was both the most thrilling and the most tragic in Oregon’s entire 115 years of play. I’ll never forget coming home from Beijing, wowed and exhausted by the trip, and hearing Kirk Herbsteit say on ESPN, “Dennis Dixon is in the driver’s seat for the Heisman Trophy. It’s his to lose.” The team I’d followed my whole life with the passion of Patton and Travis Bickel was in line to achieve the impossible dream: not only a Heisman, but a shot at the national championship. The national fucking championship! For the Oregon Ducks. For the team that once opened the 1974 and 1975 seasons by losing 61-7 to Nebraska and 62-7 to Oklahoma. For a team that Sports Illustrated described in the 1980s, when the team experienced a brief flash of success, as saying, “Even the lowly Oregon Ducks briefly waddled into the Rose Bowl race.”

Last year’s season is also tied in my emotions to my cousin Steve’s untimely death from cancer at age 39, within days of Dennis Dixon’s injury. When I shed tears that night as he was carried off the turf, they gave me an outlet to mourn for Steve, who I not only missed but who was leaving behind three young children, not to mention the countless people he’d touched as a pastor and police chaplain. It goes without saying that Steve was and still is infinitely and incomparably more important than anything that ever happens to the Oregon Ducks. But we graft emotions about the important stuff in life, stuff we couldn’t ordinarily find voice to express, into the rise and fall of the sports teams we support.

So when I maniacally jumped up and down screaming in the living room in front of the TV as the 2008 Civil War hit zero, or when I rushed soon afterward downstairs to the basement to play Kool & The Gang’s hopelessly corny classic “Celebration” on my parents’ old record player, and certainly as I watch and rewatch this grainy little YouTube montage of the game with Boston playing in the background, it’s nothing short of rapturous.

Watching Melville's "Bob le Flambeur" slowly, silently

A few days ago our living room TV shorted out and, with Valarie gone to bed, I decided to watch a DVD on my laptop. The choice was Bob Le Flambeur, a 1950s French noir by perhaps my all-time favorite filmmaker: Jean-Pierre Melville.

A forerunner of the French New Wave filmmakers, Melville was inspired by American crime movies of the 1930s and 40s: noirs, gangster pictures. His movies take place in France, usually the Parisian underground, during the 1950s and 60s. But the characters still don the fedoras and trench coats of classic noir characters, intermingling with scantily clad femme fatales.

To me Melville's best films came from the late 1960s, particularly the two great masterpieces he made with Alain Delon (the brooding but charismatic French actor nearly handsome enough to make me give up my heterosexuality): 1967's Le Samourai and 1970's Le Cercle Rouge. But his 1956 film Bob Le Flambeur is a delight as well, a heist film with a Gallic sense of poignant despair starring Roger Duchesne as an aging gambler-robber seeking one last job before he rides his Cadillac convertible into the sunset. But the surrounding din of cops, thugs and a young girl of course compromise that film.

One blogger ably wrote of Bob le Flambeur, "Melville's classic anti-heist film is so wonderful on so many levels that I don't know what to say. It's a flawless piece of construction that never feels mechanically contrived; a celebration of human singularity that never stoops to maudlin psychologizing. To say that the movie is all style is no slight to its depth. Soul and wit, compassion and irony are made indistinguishable."

When I sat down in the recliner for a late-night viewing, laptop on my lap and headphones plugged in, it turned out that my cheap computer couldn't read the DVD signal quick enough to keep up with the film's intended pace. The sound was unbearably choppy and the action was too slow, at maybe 80 percent speed.

At first I planned to turn off the movie, distracted by the frustrating notion that my laptop DVD player didn't work anymore. (We'd also unsuccessfully tried to watch I'm Alan Partridge earlier that night.) But instead I quickly got sucked into watching the movie without sound and at its reduced speed. The subtitles of dialog allowed me to still follow what was being said, and the slowness made incidental shots--walking in or out of a room, a car driving by, Bob's long drag on a cigarette as he contemplates his mortality--resonate much more strongly.

I only watched about 35 minutes of movie time, but that translated into almost an hour of watching the modified version. In the few days since, the movie has been branded on my consciousness more than most of what I watch. This experiment certainly wouldn't work with any old movie, of course. Most of them I want to go by more quickly, not less, although back when I was reviewing lots of bad box office fare for Willamette Week, I surely would have preferred some have muted sound.

Even so, I find myself now wanting to watch other pictures with great cinematography and atmosphere--mise en scene, to the French--like Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love or Claire Denis' Beau Travail--on that same crappy Compaq laptop, the surprise engine of revelation.

Bad prunes, Velma Pate, and “darkness to the light” with Barack Obama

At about 11PM on Monday night, I felt an ominous discomfort in my stomach and a suddenly throbbing headache. Within moments, I was on my knees in the bathroom vomiting, the first of about ten times over the next six hours.

My mind immediately flashed to a decision made while cooking dinner earlier that night: to use a package of dried prunes even though they were a month past the expiration date. I don’t make a habit of eating dated food, but I thought there would be a bit of a buffer zone. Plus, the packet was still sealed and I’d be cooking the prunes, in a sauce with Dijon mustard over chicken. But I learned my lesson the hard way.

Wretched as the food poisoning bout felt, alternating chills and sweat as I’d sleep for fifteen minutes, scoot to the bathroom, sleep for a half hour and return, it occurred to me at some point that perhaps I this was my body’s way of purging eight years of the George W. Bush administration. My six hours of nausea, after all, had stretched into the first few hours of Election Day.

Later that morning after a few hours’ solid sleep, I felt much better and my stomach was settled enough to have a piece of toast and watch election coverage on TV. I quickly became engrossed by a phone interview on CNN with an elderly Illinois woman named Velma Pate. As a young child, her father and other family members had marched with Martin Luther King. Today, Velma wept while casting a vote for Barack Obama.

After a few minutes, the anchor was clearly trying to wrap up the segment, and began thanking the interviewee for her time. But Velma persisted, saying she wanted to tell the American people that today they were moving from darkness into the light, just as god had prophesized.

As I describe the episode and the moment, I’m of course aware of how maudlin or melodramatic it might sound. Yet it’s a testimony to what an extraordinary moment Barack Obama’s election as president really is that my usual cynicism, and that of so many others, has for a time cleared away like a rainstorm giving way to sunshine.

I’ve been thinking today, this glorious day after the victory, of exactly when it was I lost my faith in the country. Was it 2004, still to me the most baffling choice by the American electorate? Was it 2000, when the election very well may have been unfairly taken from Al Gore? No, I think for me it went back to Bill Clinton’s impeachment. I don’t know, and frankly today don’t want to know, what disappointments and tragedies lay ahead. But it’s not time for those worries and threats just yet. First I want to listen to Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration” without apology.

It would be cause enough to celebrate merely having the Bush-Cheney era come to an end. Or to see a Democrat elected president. But this is something more. Granted, I thought that was the case with Bill Clinton, too. His election was transformative for me in a personal way, going from my conservative upbringing to left-siding political views. It was also a generational change, and the joy of watching such an effortlessly brilliant politician at work. Even for me, though, with the hindsight of history, Obama's moment feels like the greater opportunity to make a new history for the United States that is bright and promising as the last eight years were horrific and shameful. Regardless of Clinton's fans like me, he was a divisive figure. But with Obama, ironically, given his heritage and the racism that stil exists, it's clear that a greater power to unite exists.

Today I visited the Portland Art Museum to see two exhibits: a collection of historic 19th and early 20th century Columbia River Gorge photos, and M.K. Guth's "Ties of Protection and Safe Keeping", an installation that premiered earlier this year at the prestigious Whitney Biennial. It featured a single very long braid that contained hundreds of felt strips onto which people had written their ideas about what, either literal or conceptual, was most worth preserving. In both exhibits, I was moved by the notion of a river as a metaphor for the day, a narrative continually flowing with ideas. It feels better thinking of the country, and the democracy here, as a livng organism we can still renew and restore when it is needed.

During my bout of nausea, it was the middle of the night and I kept only a small nightlight on in the shadowy bathroom as I purged the prune sauce. By the time Obama’s election was secure as the clock struck 8PM Pacific Time it was dark too. But as I stood under a streetlamp outside our apartment in the rain, my slippers soaking up water like sponges and yelling “Woo-HOO!” like a gleeful child at a winning football game, or as I watched Jessie Jackson cry and cry on television, or Obama himself looking so exquisitely presidential at Grant Park making his acceptance speech, I thought for this night at least that Velma was right: that we had indeed made it from the darkness into the light.

And less than 24 hours after being KO’d by bad prunes, I was already back on cheeseburgers.

Obama's 4th quarter lead

Four years ago the presidential race was neck and neck, with an utterly despicable George W. Bush fighting back from a small deficit in the polls to the pathetically un-charismatic John Kerry, which would ultimately lead to a narrow if unbelievably insane victory on election day. If America was stupid enough to re-elect a man who stole the election of 2000 and then used September 11 as justification to attack Iraq without real cause, I wouldn't dream of saying that this year's presidential race is over. 

But Obama's lead is substantial. According to today's numbers at www.ElectoralVote.com, if the election were held today the Illinois senator would command roughly 357 electoral votes to McCain's 181. 

Although politics are always important, particularly surrounding the economic crisis this year, I think voters see an unmistakable difference between the even-keeled Obama and his opponents. In fact, Christopher Hitchens summed up the Republicans' problem in Slate a few days ago in just 17 words:

"Vote Obama. McCain lacks the character and temperament to be president. And Palin is simply a disgrace."

Even so, McCain and his rifle-wielding beauty contestant granddaughter from Alaska could unquestionably still win. I mean, Barack Obama is black for one thing, and America is still a racist country. Can we really act progressively enough to elect this man after four years ago choosing his antithesis?

Many swing voters and Republicans have in the past felt loyal to McCain because he seemed like his own person: the "maverick" brand he's exploited to the hilt. But watching McCain in this campaign, it's become increasingly clear that he is a exceptionally dangerous risk taker. Anyone who would choose Sarah Palin, for example, is willing to make a deal with the devil in order to win. And if McCain himself weren't the candidate, you'd expect a "maverick" like him to admit the obvious: that regardless of policy convictions, she isn't even in the same zip code as a qualified vice presidential candidate, let alone someone next in line for the presidency itself. And because McCain is clearly old and frail, that'd be a very major worry.

15 years ago the idea of a President Quayle was enough for t-shirt makers to co opt the famous painting "The Scream" as emblem of potential disaster waiting to happen. And Dan Quayle was actually far more qualified to be president than Sarah Palin. And maybe even less ignorant. (You know, just stupid instead of really stupid.)

It's as if the GOP has to have some kind of ridiculous extreme in the vice presidential candidate. Dick Cheney, VP for the last eight years, has acted almost as a lone coup d'etat within the US government. He is to the GOP what the NSA is to the CIA: more dangerously covert than the dangerously covert.

First when Bush got the nomination in 2000, Cheney was called upon to choose a running mate for Bush, and summarily treated all the candidates as personal enemies, using private investigation to undermine all of them and nominate himself for the running mate's slot. 

Then after the election, Cheney came to epitomize what the New York Times recently called "an administration that is a quicksand of deceit." Bush had come into office as a moderate Republican, but with Cheney leading the selection of a cabinet, the administration took a much more conservative turn. Worse yet, much of the vice president's machinations were even done behind the back of George W. Bush himself. In my mind, Cheney is the Emperor Palpatine to Bush's Anakin Skywalker.

But Palin is more like C3PO, charming but totally clueless amidst the struggles going on all around. And the fact that she's a woman makes it all the more painful to watch, as if the strides made by Hillary Clinton have spit at by the GOP.

When a sports team I support has a fourth quarter lead, it's a time for tense optimism. Obama doesn't hold a multiple touchdown lead here, either. More like a one touchdown lead. (Kerry was leading Bush by a point or two at this point.) But something as big as a terrorist attack between now and November 4 or some other wild card initiated by the increasingly desperate Republicans will at this point be required for them to win.

Obama taking the White House seems almost too implausibly wonderful and reason for optimism to actually come to fruition. But maybe, if things hold for another three weeks, it will have taken one of the worst presidencies in American history to produce the conditions for one of the best.