BRIAN LIBBY

"Media Whore"? Say It Ain't So

A couple of days ago I was sitting on a park bench downtown with a friend eating lunch when a camera man from a local news station came over to us. He explained that they were collecting random statements from those interested in giving them, and some would be chosen for that night's news broadcast.

I've been interviewed on TV news a couple times in the past, and in both cases wound up cringing as I saw myself on the tube. But I wound up accepting the impromptu offer to pontificate on television.

As soon as I was handed the microphone and cued to make my schpiel, I dove into one my most frequent obsessions: turn signals. I explained how frustrating it is when other drivers simply drift from one lane into another, or around a corner from one street onto another, without signaling to other drivers what they're doing. It can be startling, unsettling and confusing.

For good measure, I also indulged the chance to talk about a second driving petpeeve: when someone is turning left at a green light across a lane of incoming traffic and doesn't inch his or her car into the intersection. When you wait to make that turn without moving forward, it traps the drivers behind you intending to go straight. With most green lights lasting only 30 seconds, one person's left turn can trap the drivers behind that car without getting through the green lighted intersection. It's very frustrating, and needlessly so.

In both cases, I'm particularly fixated on the issue of communication between drivers, and recognition of each others' needs. I've long been frustrated but fascinated by traffic. On a kind of mathematical, biological level, I'm intrigued by the patterns of people moving in their cars. But now there's way too many of us on the road, and it magnifies the importance of execution and courtesy among drivers.

I was only on camera for about twenty seconds, and I didn't really give it much thought afterward because it seemed like they were just collecting rainy-day footage to use later. I felt a little silly having been on camera again in light of how I took it before, but I also didn't feel it was worth making a big deal about. As it happens, though, a good friend of mine works at the same TV station, and he emailed me to tell me I was indeed on the news that evening:

"You are such a media whore," he said.

In a sense I had this coming because of a couple past exploits on the tube. Earlier this year, a neighbor of mine across the street was busted by the police for having an illegal marijuana growing operation in his basement. I and several other neighbors gathered on the sidewalk to watch as police officers broke down the front door and theatrically dumped all the pot plants into the front yard. A couple TV news stations were there, but no print reporters, which told me that it was a sensationalist story. I wasn't necessarily looking to be interviewed, but a few of us were asked by one of the camera people to be interviewed, and everyone else declined. Being politically in favor of legalizing certain less addictive drugs, I sensed the reporters were obviously going to villify Winston, the nice man I'd seen playing with his young daughter several time over the months. So I went on camera and gave the reporters a contrarian if tongue-in-cheek soundbite about how Winston was just a guy with a home-based business that happened to be needlessly illegal. The news station ate it up, even incorporating the comment into their pre-broadcast teasers: "Coming up, a pot bust in Southeast Portland, and what some of the neighbors have to say may surprise you."

Late last year, I was approached by a TV news reporter to comment on a new Portland Police policy of ticketing jaywalkers. I'd written a weblog post attacking the policy as petty, misguided and unrealistic. Again, I never thought about a blog post getting picked up by TV news, but when a reporter came calling, I recognized that my message could go from reaching a couple hundred people to scores of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands.

So I guess someone who winds up on TV news three times in less than six months can't plead complete innocence when a friend teases him about being a media whore. After all, I'm guilty of some degree of vanity, and there's a part of me that has always been giddy about being on TV. I watched several hours a day of television growing up, and in 3rd grade it was a huge thrill to be on the local Ramblin' Rod cartoon show.

But ultimately what's driven me to stick my neck out in front of the camera so willingly isn't vanity or even insecurity, although I possess a fair amount of that as well. It's the earnest crusader in me. It's a quality I'm somewhat embarrassed about, because it makes me look silly sometimes. And I hate looking silly. But although I'm cynical in many ways, part of me retains this naive conviction that if I can just get certain messages out there, somehow society will function just a little bit more efficiently.

But I also take issue with my TV appearances being all about me. However silly it may seem to others, all three times I've been interviewed recently have been for me personally about the chance to put forward a socio-political viewpoint I care about. The media is a big sea of voices, and even though I don't have very much respect for TV news overall compared to print journalism (TV is obviously far, far, far more sensationalistic and substantively vacant), I felt like in each case what I was doing was a kind of demonstration that was driven by the issue at hand more than my face being on the tube.

I guess as always, the truth lies somewhere in between. I argue vehemently that my motivations were more selfless than selfish, but naturally there is a flipside of every coin. Or every KOIN, as it were.

Loco Forecast

It was only a couple months ago, amidst the post-holiday journalistic slowdown, that I only had a couple of writing assignments to work on. This month, however, the pace has quickened—big time. I’ve been pulling lots of late nights and early mornings to get everything done. Here are a few people I’ve had the good fortune to talk with over the last couple weeks:

One story is a preview of a design symposium at the Pacific Northwest College of Art called “Tokyo Flow”, in which Portland’s relationship with and influence from Tokyo is celebrated and dissected. This morning I spoke with Paola Antonelli, curator of architecture and design at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She talked about her passion for the energy behind Japanese design, how they’re not afraid to think sincerely how technology can assist even the most menial of daily tasks.

Yesterday, for the same article, I interviewed John Jay, executive creative director at powerhouse ad agency Wieden + Kennedy. John is one of five “suitcase curators” for Tokyo Flow, who have each been asked to provide objects representing great design. One of the items John chose was a sculpture of cream pouring into a mug of coffee. It’s an homage to Japan’s ubiquitous wax food sculptures in the windows of many restaurants there. He said, “The metaphor it speaks to me is that in Japan, what you see may not be real, but what you feel is.”

I’m also writing about a partnership between Nike and Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in which each year a handful of child patients are invited to custom-design a Nike shoe, which is then sold at Nike Towns around the country with the proceeds going to charity. My favorite was a kid named Sam who’s been battling a brain tumor half his life and designed a shoe in green and gold in tribute to his favorite team (and mine), the Oregon Ducks. Through the program, Sam was able to meet his hero, Sonics (and former Ducks) point guard Luke Ridnour, who signed a pair of the shoes Sam designed and even bought a pair for himself.

Earlier in the week I was able to interview acclaimed local architect Thomas Hacker, who started his career in the office of legendary architect Louis Kahn. Hacker also taught at the University of Oregon’s school of architecture and has influenced some of the city’s top designers, such as Brad Cloepfil, who is becoming an international star with major museum commissions in New York, Seattle and St. Louis. Hacker’s work is always very crisp and modern, with a recognizable Japanese influence, but also has tremendous warmth to it, through an emphasis on wood and other natural materials as well as ample natural light. Hacker's firm just unveiled the design for a new education center at First Unitarian Church in Portland that poetically but rationally exhibitis all these qualities.

On Monday I headed over to a laboratory in Northwest Portland to find out about “Fizzy Fruit”, a new invention in which ordinary fruit is given carbonation akin to soft drinks through a natural process. It’s being introduced in school lunch programs in several districts, and the hope is that ultimately, in an age of growing childhood obesity, kids will eat more healthy food because they find it fun.

That same day I had to put the finishing touches on a profile of Duane Sorenson, founder of Stumptown Coffee in Portland. Stumptown was recently named by Food & Wine magazine as the top boutique coffee producer in the world. Duane, a handsome hipster wearing a vintage Penguin shirt and tinkering i-Tunes on his Apple G-5 as we talked, has been traveling the world to form relationships with Stumtown’s coffee-growing farms. He pays beyond what is usually considered top dollar for coffee beans, and in return he isn’t afraid to instruct farmers on how to grow and pick the beans to assure optimal quality.

Over the weekend, I spent about four hours chattering with Randy Rapaport, a Portland real estate developer who has quickly become known for supporting great design. That’s all too rare, unfortunately. Randy is 46, but he doesn’t look a day beyond 25. He travels around town by skateboard and is a huge fan of The Flaming Lips, flying all over the country to see them. He's also a former child psychologist and a wellspring of eastern-oriented philosophy. (I got a lesson in being "in the now".) Randy has an ultra-swank condo, complete with custom European furniture, an impressive art collection, and an immaculate old vacuum-tube amplifier. We’re trying to pitch the condo to a design magazine.

I was frantically working most of the weekend on some last-minute problems concerning my profile of local filmmaker Nick Peterson, whose feature debut, a musical called yellow, premieres tomorrow at the Northwest Film Center. You never know, but Nick seems talented enough to someday become a household name, at least among cinephiles.

And now I’m off to the Oregon Design Conference at Salishan Resort on the coast, where I’m looking forward to hearing superbly talented architect Gregg Pasquarelli speak. Anybody want me to bring back some salt water taffee?

Neil's Self Renewal

Our good friend Neil Griffiths, author of the superb 2004 novel Betrayal In Naples, has a new play debuting on BBC Radio 4 this Friday, April 21, called "The Incompatibility of Memory in the Pursuit of a New Life". (Radio dramas are evidently popular in Britain). It's part of the Friday Play series.

Neil explains it like this:

"My guess it is a psychological thriller more than anything else; but clever people might conclude it is an examination of the Self's inability to renew itself, and for some that feels like life's great tragedy; for others the path to wisdom. Not that it's any new age bullshit in it. It's a whole lot darker than that."

You can hear Neil's play on the BBC website for a week following its Friday premiere. It'll be bloody cracking, right brilliant, oy!