Strawberry Fields Forever

It's technically Day 3 in Portland. I feel comfortable in the city now, making my way around. It was another day of talking and building infrastructure. I don't feel like such a stranger, and even getting lost provides an education.

Driving into town Tuesday, I kept seeing enigmatic signs along the side of the road with juxtaposed images, like "Strip-Malls or Strawberry Fields?" Even though spending more time in strip-malls, I was thinking I'd prefer the latter, but threw the phrase out of my head.

Yesterday, I missed a turn and never made it onto 405 back to Beaverton, so I took the surface streets, taking Burnside--a road I remember travelling back in the day when I would escape the town of Longview for movie excursions to Portland. I had no idea where I was in relation to where I should have been, so I drove...just to see where...oh, let's say THIS road, would take me.

Within ten minutes I was out of the city and into farm-land....long expanses of farmland, rolling fields that extended as far as the eye could see, with produce set-ups and horse ranches, but I thought I must have really gotten off my path to get there. I made my way back, and within a very short time I was in a neighborhood development nearly identical to the one from where I'm writing now. Two more of those developments with their McMansions and cul-de-sacs and I was back to the Main Drag that marks the turn-off to where I'm staying. There is still hundreds, thousands of acres of farm-land within a ten-minute drive of where I sit tonight typing. And those signs I mentioned? They're campaign signs for Prop 49, trying to staunch the kind of development that's shortening that ten minutes. But I found the nearness of rural to urban truly amazing. Stunning, in fact.
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My disorientation prompted me to buy a Thomas Guide for Portland at the nearby Costco, and the scales fell from my eyes about street relationships and such, and today I made a sojourn into town to see a movie at The Lloyd Center--Portland's not as-sprawling-as-you-might-expect mall on the Eastside of the river. Quite a few theaters are stacked up there, so I left early anticipating some wandering in the desert. Nope. Got there, with not the most efficient path, but got there within a short walk to the theater. There was some police action going on--an anti-terror drill turned real when a bomb-threat was called in nearby--there was still the same amount of police presence after the movie as before, with a nearby park completely cordoned off with yellow police tape. Interesting.

I met up with the Day's afterward and we went to the Russell Street Barbecue, where the food was plentiful and delicious, the wait-staff grateful for friendly joshing customers, and we talked strategy, movies, animals and television--they recommend checking out "Damages," "Weeds," "The Wire," and...thankfully, "Dexter." "Dexter" was starting to worry me--I got the full first season of "Dexter" from the production company as an enticement to watch the show for Emmy consideration, and I found it totally compelling, and extraordinarily well-done. I watched every episode in three marathon sittings. But I haven't been able to get anybody else to watch it. "Too creepy!" Well, yes, it's about a young man with homicidal instincts tracking down serial killers the law hasn't been able to touch, and...disposing of them...violently, but not before confronting them with their crimes. Extraordinarily well-written and played, especially by Michael C. Hall, late (no pun intended...much) of "Six Feet Under." But as much as I praise the show to the skies, no one will watch it. I even gave the series to a friend with one of the sickest senses of humor I know, and he couldn't get through the first episode. "Too squeamish," he said. "And could you get it out of my house?" I was starting to think there was something wrong with me, but no...it's been confirmed that, yes, it's that good.

They also recommended that I watch PBS' "American Masters" episode on Tony Bennett, and, luckily, I was able to do that tonight. What a wonderful program, done in a fast breezy, jazzy style, with Bennett among the many interviewees, as well as lots of clips, with the wonderful conceit of inter-cutting Bennett through the years singing the same songs (remarkably consistently) as well as early appearances of those songs in film. The man's been singing for 60 years, and is still going strong, and has maintained a following through the MTV generation. They even showed the "Saturday Night Live" clip of Alec Baldwin doing a wicked send-up of Bennett hosting a talk-show, with his guest...Bennett impersonator...Tony Bennett. One of the most hilarious things on that show in, well, decades...spurred on by Bennett's trademark delight participating in it. Glad I caught up with it--check it out. Brilliantly pulled off by writer-director Bruce Ricker, editor Joe Cox, and producer...Clint Eastwood. Zoink!
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Friday, I go home. I've got stuff to do, and a game-plan to pursue. I may return as early as next week, but we'll see what the freelance game has in store. Got a review to write, but just a quick recommendation--go see "Michael Clayton." You won't regret it.