My Portland Top 10 (part one)

1. Neighbors who offer to mow your lawn for 2 beers. Now that’s what I’m talking about. I’m from East coast cities for the most part, and there are no lawns to mow when you live in apartments in East Coast cities. Our grass starts to grow long and wild in front of the North Portland house my friends and I rent. We hang out on the stoop, crack open a beer, light cigarettes, and have conversations about how pretty the jungle in our front yard looks. We muse about the backyard, and wonder when the neighbors will start threatening to call the city on us (again) because we don’t take care of our Blackberry Problem. You know, I happen to think blackberries taste good and that the bushes are pretty – why is it such a problem? I love that Portland’s wildest problem is The Blackberry Problem. Anyway, our next door neighbor said, “Two beers and I’ll do your front yard.” We obliged, and now our house looks like the clean-cut version of our old house! Thanks for not taking it upon yourself to Take Care Of Our Blackberry Problem too! Cuz I’m gonna pick those motherfuckers and eat them up!

2. Breakfast at the Overlook Diner. While you and your friends are applying lipstick to your dry, hungover lips before making your weekly appearance at the Cup And Saucer or the Tin Shed, I’ll be eating delicious breakfast food wearing bad fashion at half the price of your powdered egg omelets with a giant crowd of well dressed but incredibly depressing old people.

3. The clothing-optional beach at Sauvie Island. Where else can you see a 7 foot tall naked man with gigantic muscles, hair down to his ass (but with a pompadour on top), gigantic penis bouncing on his leg as he walks, skin oiled up and the color of deep bronze fake tanning lotion, carrying a 3 foot long feather up and down the beach? And where else would this man, whose name is probably something like Eros, God Of The Sands, periodically dip his hands in the water and run them seductively through his pompadour mullet, and then drag his feather across his chest? Sauvie Island! Also home of the Naked Old Guy, who will mysteriously pop out of the bushes as you walk through the brush to the beach and smile timidly while waving at you. Wow! And this is all in the gay section – I wonder what the straight section is like at Portland’s nude beach?

4. Restaurants that still serve items with gluten in them. Let’s hear it for rice, pasta, pizza, sandwiches and fake meat! Give me gluten over gluten-free any day! Props to Vegetarian House, Pho Jasmine, Eddie’s Flat Iron Pizza, Thai Noon, Thai Ginger, Sushi Takahashi, La Sirenita, Javier’s, etc. Thank you for continuing to fill me with the finer things in life.

5. Fat Fancy. Portland’s only plus-size vintage clothing store is a blessing for the fashionable fat person of any gender. Fat Fancy is open once a month in the basement of a house in NE Portland while they raise enough money to open a storefront. The evil genius behind Fat Fancy is the wonderful Dreamboat Annie, who has put an ungodly amount of effort into making her amazing idea become a reality. Visit Fat Fancy’s MySpace page for information on upcoming sales, how to donate your own tired duds, and photos of the project!

Stay tuned for the next 5.