ok, well what about Portland, Oregon?

y

it's either there or Chicago.

CHICAGO:
PRO -- friends, band, diversity
CON -- flat, not near mountains/wilderness, will probably just turn around and move again in a year

PORTLAND:
PRO -- pretty, near rec activities I like, good music scene?, where I want to go to med school
CON -- no friends, white, too many hipsters?

move here. weather/dive bars/sprawl/music scene is better than chicago

hung far low

better dive bars than Chicago??? I have trouble believing this.

I mean, the biggest hang up is that my best pals live in Chicago, and I could rejoin the band. Other than that, Portland seems like a dream.

But let's pretend for a second: where do I live there?? I go on craigslist and none of it makes sense to me. My friend from Vancouver, WA says her friends from high school are moving to the NE side? the NW side is industrial/hipsters, south-side is for rich people....???

...is Mt Hood the best bet for skiing, or is there stuff closer?

Stay east of the river, you'll be fine. Between the river and NE/SE 50-odd avenue.

NW is yuppies. SW is yuppie families.

Yuppie families, ewwww!

Is it houses or apts in that neighborhood?

Both.

Best to come out on a scouting trip and get a feel for the place. That's what i did, with the help of Casuistry.

Probably a good idea.

I suppose moving w/o looking would be, uh, dumb.

SE is a mix of houses and apartments. there are new buildings going up all through there. both of my portland friends live in southeast and neither are yuppies.

THIS MAN, MY FRIEND SHANTI, LIVES IN SOUTHEAST PORTLAND. LOOK HIM UP RIVER WOLF

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1361/872947682_8f7785c1d2.jpg

nice pith helmet!

any pdilxors going to Tim Sweeney at Holocene on Friday? I'll be there.

The Holocene is just so gross though.

Reed: Yay or Nay?

holocene's nice not gross u crazy

ultranegative on Reed. i have yet to meet a decent human being from Reed.

I've known a couple Reed dropouts that were pretty okay.

one of my favorite ilxors went to reed

I think the guys in Dagger of the Mind are Reed kids. They're fun.

move here. weather/dive bars/sprawl/music scene is better than chicago

-- kingfish, Sunday, July 22, 2007 4:58 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Link

wtf, for some reason I always thought kingfish was Britishes and just had an unhealthy obsession with US politics.

Holocene is basically the hellmouth. Being at the Holocene is like having the veil of maya removed and staring at the bleak abyss of nothingness that is the true reality.

Chicago clearly has better dive bars than Portland. Let's not be ridiculous here.

Oh man, Reed. PROBLEMATIC. Reedies are fine individually but get really upsetting in groups. Nice campus though, and they seem to be pretty smart people. But the Reedie culture is just not my scene. Nice campus, though.

Also Mt Hood is ridiculously close. Like 40 miles away? I don't ski though, but I believe that is where people go.

East side is a must, although if you're going to go to OHSU, then there are a few little bits of west side worth considering. SE is not as bad as your friends say, especially further out. Foster in the 60s/70s is up and coming, they keep telling me, and I know a bunch of people out there now, so it might be true.

And rw, I am out of town for the summer but sometime after midSeptember you'd be welcome to crash on my futon for a day or two. I suspect that is too late for your needs, though.

wtf, for some reason I always thought kingfish was Britishes and just had an unhealthy obsession with US politics.

haha, this is a new one. Massively anglophilic(like most amerikaners on here), but I've only lived in three cities my entire life: Flint, Ann Arbor, and Portland. Also, you should have been paying better attention when I talked about meeting John Edwards, etc.

I also have available couchspace, if need be.

thanks dudes. if i visit, it'll have to be late august, for a sept 1 lease or something.

i'm really fencesitting here, though.

Like we said, come & visit. I was here for about two days(after spending 4 years of visiting different cities) before deciding to come out here from michigan.

You can always move to Chicago now and move to PDX later, or vice versa.

well if i get into school at OHSU i'll be living in PDX no matter what!

Yeah, try a coupla of those chicago winters & summers and see whatcha think.

xp

Done one of each already.

I flew out here on a Thursday last September, left Friday morning for a week in California, drove back to Oregon on the second Saturday and got a ride to the airport at 5am Sunday morning. I may have been in the state of Oregon a total of 36 hours before I moved here, and half of that was sleeping or on I-5 or both. I moved here in January.

I'm semi-transient though and could move anywhere like, tomorrow. I know it takes a commitment when you're packing up a huge load of stuff.

I think Chicago is hotter and colder than Portland, and Portland gets about 6 inches more precipitation.

It's a temperate rain forest, and is marked by temperance. Except there is also drinking.

A lot.

Eek!

I need someone to make decisions for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMzeiMJQrvk

Remember the day of the snow apocalypse back in January? When people didn't realize that their 4WD cars couldn't handle icey hills and a complete lack of training of driving in adverse weather? Guess what happened when an enterprising sort decided to capture the hijinx...

As an old person who was born in Portland (I grew up near Hosford school) I find it interesting to see what young immigrants (aka "infillers") think of the place. I would never think of leaving this area. My roots are down deep into the mediocre detritus of this place.

Sorry, but I can't comment on the bar/nightlife scene, for obv reasons. Just mainly lurking here. Carry on.

Portlanders, please comment on this Slate article: Why Portland is America's indie rock Mecca.

Oh, maybe I should've revived this, but it's on ILM: PORTLAND becomes city for indie musicians!!

OK. I read it. It had almost nothing to say and said it at some length. He spends the entire article dropping names of musicians who live in Portland, most of whom moved here. He describes their cars, their clothes and their shopping habits. He notes that many of them don't play many gigs here. He keeps asking, rhetorically, what all this could mean?

Then, in the final paragraph he gets around to saying that, maybe, just possibly, they came here to live because it's a nice place to live in. Zounds! Not exactly the stuff of pure, crystalline insight, if you ask me.

"And, crucially, indie groups always have good experiences here, because the city produces very enthusiastic rock crowds."

I don't think this dude has ever been to an indie rock show in Portland.

Feature in Sunday NY Times real-estate section on PDX sez that studios and 1-BRs there are less than 2/3 the rental of same in mid-Brooklyn. Look for new influx of Gothamites in 6-18 months.

I would move there, totally.

people who moved to brooklyn attempting to become scenesters and then ran out of money count as "Gothamites?"

I still think about moving there sometimes. I'm sure by the time I actually could it will be too late.

i would go to powells once a week.