Salvage Heart

A brief review in the Oregonian today, of Edward Ugel's Money for Nothing: One Man's Journey Through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions. Ugel will be back in Portland tomorrow evening for a 7:30 p.m. reading at Powell's, just down the street from where he first got hooked on gambling himself: the video poker machines at Claudia's, a sports bar on S.E. Hawthorne.

I first heard about this on "This American Life" last spring I think, and was struck by the story, elaborated upon here, of companies that basically buyout lottery winnings. In short, the result is a good book, very entertaining, though a little light at times on number details (which could owe to certain legalities that also necessitated the changing of most names).


The book title also reminds me of one of John Cusack's underappreciated works: Money for Nothing, which I had forgotten was based on a Mark Bowden article. This is a similar unemployed dockworker oeuvre that echoes throughout season two of HBO's "The Wire." Does Cusack come across as a more desperate loser than Pablo Schreiber, a.k.a. Nick Sobotka? Hard to say. Is Cusack girl Debi Mazar hotter than Nick's Aimee (Kristin Proctor)? I don't know...both were worth looking up the names on though.

Cusack was recently quoted as saying that he'd made ten good movies, and everyone knows which ones they are. Was Money for Nothing? Probably. Is his new one, with the Martian? Uh....

Labels: books, Edward Ugel, John Cusack, Money for Nothing, Oregonian, Powell's, The Wire

Couple of bylined items in today's inPortland section of The Oregonian....

• An update on the SunRose condo project, on the half-block where the Hungry Tiger once growled. Local developer Randy Rapaport was consulting on it...and now he is not. The project is a go, though, says everyone still on board, including Ann Cohen, who represents the Wong Family. Should be interesting to watch develop, particularly if it doesn't start construction by Thanksgiving, which was the latest planned date. Probably more to this story, but probably not much more that could appear (attributed) in print.
• Also, the Storefronts feature, with new businesses galore (if you call "seven or eight" galore). Features Seven Virtues, at N.E. 60th and Glisan. (And feel free to click on that storefront link...I spent about 15 minutes trying to find the right OregonLive front door that actually listed the inPortland section...maddening.)
• One other note: I'm now serving as the Northeast Portland correspondent for inPortland, which means I'm looking for interesting items about NE Portland, out to about 82nd (which will be covered by someone else). Hot tips welcomed.
  

Labels: journalism, Oregonian, Portland, Randy Rapaport, storefronts, SunRose

Could it be that the Portland Tribune, the once-mighty challenger to The Oregonian (at least on Tuesdays and Fridays), could be gearing up for another assault?

In the Tuesday, October 24 edition, the paper included a letter from Steven Clark, Community Newspapers and Portland Tribune president, that, to the unknowing reader might sound like a re-commitment to the paper's purpose. Key points include (quoted from the letter):

• The hiring of additional reporting, editing and photography staff.
• The hiring of a company executive editor to grow and improve local news coverage within our many newspapers.
• The expansion of our Web sites, including more local news, information services and the addition of Reuters national and international news coverage.
• Expansion of editorial and opinion pages.
• Enhancement of newspaper distribution.
• And expansion of partnerships between our many newspapers.

And to its credit, the paper has gradually evolved into a Portland "community" paper rather than a seldom-published daily, albeit still the flagship enterprise. Combined with the 15 or so other properties in the Community Newspapers chain, you're generating content for a lot of neighborhoods. It will be interesting to see how Reuters content is folded in...does this mean that Trib content then goes to Reuters?

Also worth noting: not one but two investigative/enterprise reporter positions open at the paper right now, as posted at JournalismJobs.com. These positions will be based at the Trib, but will "serve as a resource" to the other 16 Pamplin papers as well.

One caveat: Owner/Doctor/Reverend Robert Pamplin, Jr., has engaged in vigorous bloodletting in the past at his media properties, including KPAM 860 am (at one brief time the home of the largest radio newsroom on the West Coast), and the periodic purges at the Trib (Business section, we hardly knew ye....), including the downtown Portland editorial offices.

A final note: tip of the hat to Ellison Weist, who had the guts to tackle that massive Daniel Boone biography (I couldn't land the assignment at the competitor paper) by Robert Morgan, a review of which ran yesterday as a preview to tonight's reading at Powell's City of Books. Daniel Boone rules! Kit Carson drools!

[Semi-full disclosure: I've written for the Trib, and my spouse once worked at KPAM. Also, we both appeared on the cover back in 2005, which I may post if I go back and scan it in.]

Labels: journalism, newspapers, Portland, Portland Tribune

Meant to post this sooner, but my interview with the newish executive director at the Oregon Council for the Humanities, Cara Ungar-Gutierrez, ran in The Oregonian this past Sunday.

By "interview ran," I mean that probably less than ten-percent of the interview ran. Now, part of what didn't run was meta-interview (is the red light on? Can you see it?). But there were some interesting parts that also didn't make it.

One thing is that she had previously applied to work at OCH, as a development person, but had no experience raising money. She ended up at the Oregon Historical Society, which gave her a chance to "become human," as she put it, by virtue of being around people rather than academics (she had just finished her dissertation for a PhD in rhetoric), and then replaced Christopher Zinn (or, replaced the interim, Carrie Hoops, who filled in when Zinn left).

OCH is currently embarking on a two-year program called "Borders and Boundaries," sponsored in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities, that will lead in to the Oregon sesquicentennial in 2009. Look for that theme to stretch across the magazine that they publish (Oregon Humanities, which is going to publish three times/year rather than twice, and will incorporate the OCH newsletter), as well as lectures like Commonplace. It may even have some bearing on the somewhat-lackluster Chautauqua lectures.

This Friday, Mark Trahant (who edits the editorial page at the Seattle P-I) will give the season's first Commonplace lecture at Portland State University's Native American Student and Community Center. He will discuss the plight of the urban Indian, and why anyone should care: "Roads, Interstates, and the Oregon Trail: The Urban Indian Experience in the Rural West." The lecture ties in with the second edition of the book The First Oregonians.

Ungar-Gutierrez also noted that she'd been interviewed by a couple of nondaily papers, both of which seemed more interested in her husband, who goes by the moniker DJ Rafa, and who djs around town. She laughed about it, but when I called to fact-check one thing (his name), I don't know that she was feeling the third time as a charm.

Charm, though. Charming. Fun to talk to, lots of good ideas, and an implementation that will no doubt tread softly but assuredly.

Labels: journalism, Oregon Council for the Humanities, Oregonian

As mentioned in the Little Red Bike Cafe post (I continually want to call it "Little Red Wagon"), I'm now the Storefronts correspondent for the inPortland section of The Oregonian, which runs on Thursdays.

This week's featured shop is Blackbird Wineshop, very nice, with the added bonus of tremendous art, hanging by the co-owner Amelia Craigen.

Feel free to pass tips along on new businesses in the Portland area: restaurants, bars, retail outlets, and other places that have opened in the last month or so (or better yet, are going to open in the next month or so). E-mail them to the paper, and they'll pass them to me. That seems direct, doesn't it?

Labels: journalism, Oregonian, Portland, storefronts

As a breakfast joint, Little Red Bike Cafe, was well worth the foray into the heart of North Lombard/University Park in North Portland.

As a freelance assignment for The Oregonian, it was a complete bust.

Ali Jepson and Evan Dohrmann, locals and longtime friends, opened the 15-seat cafe August 30, 2007 in the site of a former coffee shop, NoPo Coffee, at 4823 N.Lombard. They did a fair amount of work, replaced fixtures (overhead fluorescents) with snazzy Schoolhouse Electric. They bought new furniture, from Portland's own Ikea, which collapsed. They bought more furniture.

The two had run a catering company with an outpost at the Thursday and Saturday farmers markets, Green & Green Salad Co., selling bread pudding (I think). The two had in mind a "quick-serve salad" concept, but couldn't find a decent space that would pencil out.

Then their buddy David, who owns the waffle stand Flavour, also on Lombard, tipped them off to the NoPo location. "If we could get here, we could make it work," Dohrmann said, when I spoke to him yesterday (Oct 16). It was a far cry from the 2,000 sq ft they had envisioned, but it would work.


The name came from Ali Jepson's sister's e-mail address, and evoked in their minds a mid-century simplicity that they sought to carry forward with their menu, with the requisite updates. The two also have an appreciation for biking, though Dohrmann says that they are Sunday-around-the-neighborhood bikers rather than the Lycra variety. (Little Red Bike is also a children's book.) And, their coffee roaster, Joel of Courier Coffee Roasters, just so happened to make deliveries by bike (see photo).

So the breakfast: I had the Paperboy Special: fried egg and cheese on ciabatta ($6), with bacon ($1), and choice of coffee, tea, or OJ. I went with coffee (note: refills are 50 cents extra). My wife went with The Messenger: freid egg, bacon, gorgonzola spread and homemade apple butter spread on ciabatta ($6). Our two-year-old had Honeyed Yogurt, which inexplicably topped all orders: honey yogurt, granola, cinnamon, and season fruit that included strawberries, bananas, apples, and maybe something else. We also sprang for a croissant.

Service is low-key: order at the counter, get your water (from a cooler by the door), get your highchair (by the bathroom), get your table (while you can). At around 9:30 a.m., business was steady with locals, moms and their kids, but virtually no University of Portland students, who Evan Dohrmann says have yet to discover this place.

Lunch also looked worth returning for, including the curious buttermilk milkshake. Weekends look like the best time for specials to augment the limited menu. And if you come by after 3 p.m. on bike, pedal up to the bike-thru window—one of several bike-friendly nods (you can also save 50 cents on beverages I think if you bike in). The bike repair gear that they carried in the bakery case during the early days were nowhere in sight, and probably just as well from an appetite standpoint.

There's more to this story, including some interesting notes on the proprietors' backgrounds, but I'm tired of typing, and perhaps just a little bitter: As the new "Storefronts" columnist for the inPortland section of The Oregonian, I found this place and decided to feature it in week two of the column. I drove out there. Bought breakfast. Took notes. Snapped pictures in the rain. And at 10:30 a.m. I got home to crank it out for a noon deadline.

And at 11:30 a.m., while checking the cafe's hours on the Web site, I happened across a link to The Oregonian, which I clicked out of curiosity to what they might be linking to. Turns out it was an article on the place, written by Tom Hallman, Jr., on September 27. A clever little piece, with plenty of witty observations.

Not only did that sink my story and blow the deadline (I had already been beaten out of another Storefronts feature on another new cafe that Laura Gunderson had gotten to first), it left me with no backup.

In the end, I found somewhere else (albeit less cool) to write about. And breakfast was still worth the price of entry.

Labels: bike, food, Little Red Bike Cafe, Portland, restaurants

The taste of jambalaya still sweet (and spicy) on my breath, I watched the Kentucky Wildcats stand up the LSU Tigers on fourth and two, clinching the victory in third overtime, 43-37.

To watch UK knock off a #1 team in football lacks contemporary precedent (I missed both the 1951 and 1964 episodes). This is a team for whom a win in the SEC against anyone other than Ole Miss, Miss St. or Vanderbilt was cause for tearing down goal posts (or expanding Commonwealth Stadium). Their brief #8 ranking this year, fat on the early season flops, felt as false as hopes of a bowl game with a 5-5 record and Tennessee still remaining on the schedule. Last week's loss to South Carolina, knocking the Cats down to #17 and 5-1 on the year, felt like the inevitable correction in a bubble market.

To be sure, my history of Kentucky football is an incomplete. The Wildcats held my full attention throughout the 1980s, from the onset of the Jerry Claiborne, wide-tackle six era and 0-10-1, to the unlikely turnaround lead by Randy Jenkins and his moustache, the fleet feet of Chip Massie, the 80-yard punt by Paul Calhoun (and Bobby Knight chair-throwing contest victory he lodged one evening at a local watering hole).

My first radio, in fourth grade, was so I could listen to the Cats, moving "from left to right on your radio dial," in the words of broadcaster Caywood Ledford. Jenkins gave way to Bill Ransdell, the scrappy QB who led the Cats to Bowl victory and winning seasons, who made it to the NFL. In high school I had my folks tickets, and we'd wander the concourse, then squeeze in to the two-yard-line seats toward the top deck...for about five minutes. Was it Bowling Green State or Central Michigan when my friend and I waded through the deluge to squat in unwanted 50-yard-line seats, then out to the parking lot mudhole where we pushed cars through the swamp out to Alumni Drive?

Why am I asking you? Because I don't remember. Those years subsequent faded, and the era of Hal Mumme, Tim Couch, Jared Lorenzen, probabation, are fuzzy hearsay, no more than the occasional box score in a Portland, Oregon, newspaper as UK fell to top-25 [insert name].

The years of almost-but-no. The third quarter and fourth quarter collapses. The heart and heartbreak, and the long shadow of the basketball program.

Last year I sat in a hospital waiting room while surgeons cut a tumor out of my father's skull, watching UK beat Clemson in a bowl game. Trying days, but the win still gave me a thrill.

Today, at the start of the second half, with Kentucky only down 17-14, I walked over to my neighbors' house, where I drank a beer and ate jambalaya, and wondered at what point I would need to quietly exit this Louisiana native's home to avoid a situation.

Answer: Mid-2OT, when the wife called to say she was taking the kids to the pumpkin patch, without me (I have a conflict).

I watched the win alone, and cheered, though probably not alone. My shirt and jeans were the wrong color blue, and tomorrow I'll be back to picking through the box scores. But tonight, for one moment, the years of almosts and could have beens, the guts and futility of Claiborne's wide-tackle six, and the little program that couldn't, the insult of the "Bluegrass Miracle" that beat Kentucky last time LSU came to Lexington, for one moment it all faded away.

Go Cats.

Labels: football, Jerry Claiborne, Kentucky Wildcats