Subjective Realities: Lifestyles of the Dandy and Eccentric

In yesterday's post, entitled "America: The Wonderful World of Tube-Shaped Meats and Canned Cheeses," I posted the following picture:

And then made the following flippant remark:

I'm not one for fawning over bicycles, but I do believe that our bikes communicate with us, and what this bike is saying is, "You're an idiot."

Subsequently, a commenter made the following observation:

Bobby said...

Saying these woodland downhilling fixie hipsters are idiots because they burn through tires is a lot like saying rally car drivers are idiots because they damage their vehicles. Burnt tires don't detract from the physicality of the riders, the art in the way in which they've chosen to connect to their machines, and the rush of participating in risk-taking behavior. No, not idiots...

August 9, 2011 3:48 PM

I've never been one to shy away from intelligent discourse--provided of course that such discourse centers around an elementary subject, such as which packaged snack food is more delicious, or who was the best blonde on "Three's Company." (I gotta go with Terri on that one, she had a career and thus was the most empowering.) Beyond that, I'm hopelessly out of my depth.

Nevetheless, Bobby's comment made me think. (It also made me drool, because I drool when I think. Also, I have trouble thinking and typing at the same ditniewfnnn.) Mostly, what I thought was that the hillbombers are nothing like rally car drivers, since rally car drivers use specialized equipment on closed courses and the hillbombers use the most ill-suited equipment possible on public roads. Actually, in my opinion, the hillbombers are more like unlicensed drivers in Formula One cars with no brakes who are rallying in a national park. At best, maybe they're the guy in your neighborhood with the flat-brim hat and the Honda Civic who's into "drifting" and winds up in the New York Post because he slammed into a gas station at 4am.

Still, I do think Bobby makes an interesting point, which is that when it comes to sporting endeavors "idiotic" is highly subjective, and that one person's pastime is another person's idiocy. I mean, there are people out there who believe that anybody who rides a bike is an idiot. (These people are called "Americans.") So why is whip-skidding down a mountain idiotic, but barreling down one on a full-suspension bicycle is not? (Depending on whether or not you think downhill mountain biking is idiotic, which is a whole other debate.)

Well, after giving it about 19 seconds of thought, I came up with a criterion (not a criterium) for what constitutes silly recreational cycling behavior--at least for me. It's not meant to be a judgment; rather, it's my own personal way of qualifying my own opinions. Basically, my criterion for silly cycling is this:

If it's a type of riding that is already well-established, only you're using the wrong bike for it, then it's silly.

See? Simple. For example:

--Doing tricks on BMX bikes=not silly. Doing tricks on fixed-gear bikes=silly.

--Commuting on commuter bikes=not silly. Commuting on custom titanium bikes=silly.

--Riding downhill fast on bikes with brakes=not silly. Riding downhill fast on bikes with no brakes=silly.

Sure, I know what you're thinking: "Who's to say what's the 'wrong' bike? What about my rad-tastic mountain-bike-trail-on-a-cyclocross-bike 'epic,' or my compulsion to be the token singlespeeder at any competitive cycling event?" Well, rest assured I don't mean using a bike that's perhaps not optimal--I mean, we all enjoy a challenge. Still, I do think there's a point at which the bike you're using is just wrong, and one of the signs of this is when you like riding bikes downhill but your tire frequently explodes in high-speed situations, leaving you with no other means of slowing the bike:

Of course, it's human nature to want to do things "wrong." We are genetically programmed to disregard sound advice from more experienced people and instead repeat their mistakes. This is why, despite all our nifty technology, our collective consciousness is only slightly more elevated than it was thousands of years ago. Basically, the human condition consists of doing really stupid stuff over and over again, and as such our advancement is barely perceptible. It's sort of an "intellectual creep." I guess that's what happens when you have to spread a learning curve over billions of people. Anyway, "intellectual creep" is why we're all still looting and killing each other, and it's also why it will take these hillbombers years before one of them realizes, "Hey, why don't we try this on road bikes?"

Anyway, if the hillbombing bike is saying "You're an idiot," what is this bike saying?



The above bicycle was photographed by a reader in (I shouldn't even have to bother typing the next word) Portland. I suspect it actually fell from the future through a wormhole in time, and that it's actually the Flying Pigeon Coquettish Hilpstress's bike 20 years from now--you know, when she has 19 cats, her apartment has gone from "shabby chic" to just plain shabby, and she is officially eccentric.

Still, I have no idea what the bike is saying, for it speaks of a lifestyle I'm simply not equipped to envision:

I mean, I know abstractly that people in Portland lead the kind of lifestyles that require them to carry bird cages and tattered paperbacks and whimsical tapestries and multiple yoga mats and plastic bags full of fanzines and a whole lot of what at least appears to be burlap, but I can't imagine what it would actually be like to be such a person in the same way I'll never truly understand what it feels like to, say, be a dolphin, or to be sand on a beach. Like, what does this person actually think about in the morning? Do they soberly and rationally think, "OK, better load up the Peugeot with delightful bric-a-brac since I have a hard day of reading, stretching, sack racing, and general pretending ahead of me"? Or is it simply instinctual and mindless animal behavior, like the way magpies steal shiny things?



Honestly, it's impossible for me to say, though I do suspect the New York City equivalent of this person is the "dandy" who has his dandying supplies delivered by bicycle, a service of which I was informed by another reader:



This is terrific news if you ever find yourself on a naked ride that gets harassed by the cops, because with a simple phone call you can place an order and transform it into a tweed ride. Still this operation clearly has no credibility, since no self-respecting dandy would either ride or accept a delivery from what at least appears to be an ill-fitting "vintage"-styled Huffy.



Also, how would you know that your toe finally poked through your sock if you were at work? Presumably you'd be wearing your shoes, so you really wouldn't have any idea. Or do dandies tend to work shoeless? For that matter, do dandies even work? I thought they just spent their days at roll-top desks writing letters to relatives on expensive stationary asking them for advances on their trusts.



Equally vexing is the mystery of this cockpit, which was forwarded to me by yet another reader:





I don't know what purpose this structure serves, but I do know PVC is the crabon of the DIY cockpit enthusiast.

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Living Fierce: Unleashing your Personal Best

As much as I enjoyed my visit to Gothenburg, there is nothing quite as comforting as familiarity. I take solace in the predictable, and my life here in Uh-merica is just that. For example, I know that when I wake up in the morning, the sun will rise. I also know that this sun will shine on monkey feces, since my helper monkey, Vito, likes to relieve himself on my bedspread in the middle of the night. Mostly, though, I know that people in Portland, OR will continue to love beer and bikes, which is why this article on BikePortland should come as no surprise whatsoever:

Yes, it's well-known that putting a bunch of frames in any Portland establishment can double business overnight. This is not limited to bars, either. Even the Multnomah County Health Department is embracing the "put a bike on it" approach. Did you know that, because of low screening rates, less than 40% of colorectal cancers are found early? Well, by installing bike-themed colonoscopy stations all over the city they expect Portlanders will flock to have their colons examined with endoscopic tools fabricated by the city's top framebuilders. These stations will be staffed by United Bicycle Institute student volunteers:

(A UBI student inspects a patient's "bottom bracket" for polyps.)

When it comes to cancer, early (and artisanal) detection is they key to prevention.

Also, apparently Portlanders can't even get through a pint of organic beer or an order of organic french fries without being tempted to perform bike maintenance, which is why the BikeBar has "loaner tools:"

"Hold that thought--I really should service my hub bearings. Can you watch my organic seven-grain stout?"

But clearly the most important amenities are the "'Plug Out' exer-cycles that you can spin and generate electricity while you wait for your order." This is a stroke of genius on the part of the owners, since it simultaneously preys on Portlanders' compulsion to pedal bicycles at all times as well as their borderline pathological need to feel good about themselves, thereby ensuring that the establishment never has to pay a single utility bill. Now that's how you harness the power of smugness.

Meanwhile, when it comes to bicycle-themed entrepreneurship we New Yorkers are woefully behind. However, there is the odd flicker of brilliance, such as this Kickstarter pitch from a Brooklyn man for a bicycle "break" light:


Unfortunately, there are a few problems with this device. For one thing, as far as I can tell, the light only works when you use your brake, which means you're still cloaked in darkness in a non-braking situation. This dovetails into the second problem, which is that nobody uses brakes anymore anyway. If he invented some sort of tire that shoots sparks when you skid then perhaps he'd be on to something. As a bonus, such a tire would open the door for brakeless riders to immolate themselves should they attempt to skid in the vicinity of a fuel spill.

Still, I was inspired by his somewhat disjointed story about how he was inspired to invent the brake light, which is basically that he got into an altercation with a cyclist after nearly running the cyclist over. This reminds me of the Festivus origin story in its sheer negativity. Also, it should go without saying that the kid in the tie-dye is awesome:


His thumbs don't go down for two and a half minutes:


His visage is also nothing short of mezmerizing:

In fact, I haven't been so entranced since my encounter with the Nonplussed Journalist:


His gaze was so persuasive that, despite my initial skepticism, I'd somehow ended up pledging $20,000:

We also now have the exact same haircut, though for the life of me I can't remember going to the barber.

Speaking of brakelessness, a reader recently forwarded me this video of a "midnite crit" in our notion's carpital:

DC Midnite Crit from In The Crosshairs on Vimeo.

I'm always excited to watch a Nü-Fred on-the-bike slapfight, and I knew the competition was going to be fierce when I saw how much trouble some of the participants have with putting on their helmets:


While others forego helmets altogether and opt for the time-honored "windblown butt-cut" look:


The riders tear through corners at a moderate clip, making sure not to use their drops lest they inadvertently pick up speed:


As for the course, "It's about a 10-mile, 10-lap course...crit style, no one gets dropped:"

This explanation puzzled me for two reasons. Firstly, since when does "crit-style" mean no one gets dropped? I can assure you that people do get dropped in crits, and in fact I've been dropped in every single crit I've ever entered. Secondly, at almost no point in the video are any two riders anywhere near each other, which technically means that everybody got dropped--except for the winner, of course. Really, this is less a "crit" than it is a "hipster ITT."

Speaking of the winner, he gets a trophy, and then scowls like a man who knows just how badass it is to beat a bunch of people who don't know how to put on their helmets:

Like tying your own shoes or doing your own laundry, winning trophies is impressive when you're a young child but becomes less so with each passing year. However, in the hipster community all of these feats are sources of great pride until you're well into your 30s. In fact, some say winning a trophy in no-drop crit is the first step to becoming a GNC fixie model, as forwarded to me by a fellow Tweeterer:


Fixie crits may be the new triathlon.

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Creation Myth: Where do Hipsters Come From?

As I mentioned yesterday, I have officially shifted my consciousness to Portland, Oregon, and I couldn't be happier. Not only am I no longer forced to discuss any subject more profound than coffee, but I also garnered some attention in my now-local media. For example, something called "The Oregonian" (I think it's some kind of newsletter for oregano enthusiasts) asks:

Yes. Yes, I have.

BikePortland also reported on my move, presumably because there was a rare two-hour window yesterday in which nobody had organized any sort of naked theme ride, thus resulting in something of a slow news day:


I'm also pleased to report that BikePortland's commenters were almost universally nonplussed:

Mike March 29, 2011 at 6:21 am

I use to pay attention to this guy's blog....not anymore. Seems to me he is more negative than anything, for Christ sake it's just an F'ing bike lighten up. Myself, I don't care what kind of bike it is, how lame-o it is if it's being rode then I'm happy.

Sure, I realize my blog is deadly serious, though his comment still stung me somewhat. After all, like Mike, I also love all bikes--except for his, which is hopelessly lame.

Anyway, after reading about myself I browsed on over to Craigslist to see if I'd scored any "missed connections." I hadn't, but I did find this:

You: Pleather. Me: Lace. - w4w - 27 (The Blow of the Pony)
Date: 2011-03-28, 12:02AM PDT

My first time at "the BlowPony". You in white pleather (hopefully? I'm vegan) chaps drinking an MGD on the first level... Is strutted past you in my neon-teal snap-crotch lace onesie, hoping you'd pick up on the contextual irony. Alas, you turned towards a friend and squawked incoherently about (the music? the D.J.? the color of the walls?)

In spite of your obtusiveness, I'd really like to take you out in my Mustang (c'est la vie chalet? ring a bell?) and show you a good time... I'll buy the MGD this round.

Peace, love, and downward dog....

I totally thought it was for me at first though, since I just happened to be wearing white pleather chaps yesterday too. However, I wasn't drinking MGD and was actually quaffing a fermented beverage my organic farming roommates and I "curate" from fluid expressed from the anal glands of our chickens. (Fortunately the bar had a liberal BYOFEFTAGOC policy.) Nevertheless, I've extended an invitation to the poster to come join us at the homestead for a little soirée in which we can exchange observations of contextual irony over glasses of fermented chicken ass juice, and I'm hoping she'll accept.

I'd be lying though if I said I didn't occassionally miss my old life in New York City. The truth is that no other city boasts New York's diversity, or its rich pastiche of interesting characters. Each one of my neighbors alone could have been the starring character in a movie. For example, one of my next-door neighbors was an irascible actor living hand-to-mouth until he--get this--dressed up in drag and landed himself a starring role on a soap opera:

While my other next-door neighbor was an irascible huckster with severe respiratory problems who always hung around with a guy dressed as a cowboy:

Really, by far my most normal neighbor was the young guy who lived across the hall. He was a graduate student at Columbia who was also a pretty serious runner:

Oddly though I haven't seen him since his last dental appointment. ("Is it safe?," asked the dentist menacingly as he rolled up on his Serotta.)

Seriously, you can't make this stuff up. Only in New York, and so forth.

Of course, the most important part of living in New York is constantly lamenting about how much better it was "back in the day"--you know, before Times Square was Disney-ified and you could still go see the Talking Heads play CBGB without listening to David Byrne read from his stupid book about bikes, after which you could go to an after-hours club where you'd contract hepatitis from ingesting hard drugs off a toilet seat, and then finally enjoy a nightcap of being beaten and robbed.

I also fondly remember the days when New York's streets were teeming with erudite pedestrians who alternately cracked wise and held forth on philosophy, literature, and cinema:

At least until they almost got run over by cars.

So why do the young and hopeful continue to move to New York City? Is it because they're in search of that romantic, pedantic, hepatitis-infected past? Or, to put it another way, who are hipsters, where do they come from, and how are they made? Well, the following short film about bicycle messengers (forwarded to me by the filmmaker) may at least partially answer these questions:

Zebra 022 from T. Leonardo on Vimeo.

First, the film establishes the typical hipster's mental state as the main character browses an art gallery a metaphor for creativity:

"Sometimes I think New York is a cage and I'm trapped in it. My head becomes swollen with ideas and I can't think anymore. Sometimes I wonder how free I really am."

I totally "feel you" on that one. That's why I left and moved to Portland. My head was also swollen with ideas when I lived in New York. Just a few ideas I might have at any given moment included:

--Wrap the cat in cellophane;

--Take up beekeeping;

--See if Skittles would be good on a BLT;

--Turn my coat closet into a sauna;

--Change the color scheme on my "fixie."

In retrospect though there might have been other factors contributing to these ideas as well, and I'd advise the young lady in the glasses to lay off the "Wednesday weed" and see if the mental swelling persists.

Next, we see a messenger metaphor for freedom weaving through traffic:

Unlike the young lady with the glasses, his head is completely devoid of ideas. This is because, apparently, nothing matters on a bike:

"I always wanted to move fast. I wanted to get away, but I didn't know where I was going. But it doesn't matter on a bike. Nothing matters on a bike but speed and freedom."

I think the victim memorialized by that ghost bike might have a different opinion. Nothing matters when you're sitting on the couch smoking "Wednesday weed" and eating a BLT with Skittles. Everything matters when you're on a bike in the city and you're eternally one wrong move away from getting flattened by a bus.

In any case, by now we understand that hipsters are essentially people who are overwhelmed by simply being alive and are constantly looking to escape the unpleasant business of thinking for themselves that the rest of us generally refer to as "adulthood." But where do they come from? Well, Iowa apparently:

"Ever since I was a kid I always wanted to go fast, you know? I just like, I love the action and I love the adrenaline and I just--I just needed to get out of Iowa."

Wait, she loves action and adrenaline and she left Iowa? Has she never heard of RAGBRAI?!?

RAGBRAI is action and adrenaline--I think that's actually what the two "A"s stand for:

I may have to ditch Portland for Iowa.

Nevertheless, every person undergoes his or her own journey to self-discovery, which is what these train tracks mean:


"Portaging" her bike along railroad tracks means the bike is an integral part of her personal journey, and when she shifts the bicycle onto the rail it means things are going more smoothly. Or something:

And obviously, the rain symbolizes Portland.

Incidentally, railroads are a popular device in cinema, though they usually symbolize "doing it," as in the old "train entering the tunnel" metaphor:



Which is generally followed by some variation on the orgasmic "erupting geyser:"



Next, nine months later, the avian symbol arrives:

Finally, after 22 years, $150,000 in tuition, and a Bard diploma, your child moves to New York City to deliver paperwork on a color-coordinated bicycle with no brakes and you wonder where you went wrong:

Up until now, most of the film has consisted of riding footage and voice-overs, but at 5:09 the acting kicks in with a single line delivered with all the passion and enthusiasm of a surly teenager making an obligatory phone call to a grandparent:

"Picking up at 150 Varick?"

She deserves an Acada-meh Award.

Having thoroughly exhausted all the acting reserves, the film then goes back to riding footage and voice-overs, though now it's a male voice speaking in an almost indecipherable disinterested hipster patois:

"I dunno, I was just cruisin' to the city the other day, I saw some dude layin' down on the road. Like, everyone was surrounding him, definitely got hit. [mumblemumblemumble] by riding harder, by being more aggressive. You know, keep on the streets in a safe manner. I think it's definitely [mumblemumblemumble] cars come out of nowhere. You know, be a close call...car overtakes you... You know, you just gotta keep moving forward on that path [mumblemumblemumble]...."

I don't know how people make it through four years of Bard without having to completely form their mouths around words, but then again I suppose when you pay all that tuition you shouldn't be expected to have to go through the trouble of actually speaking.

Then we see breakdancers metaphors for urban creativity:

"I don't know when I'll leave New York. I kinda wanna get something done here which is obtain this dream I've had of being an artist."

Frank Sinatra famously sang of New York, "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere." Decades later, I guess it's now a place you come to from Iowa if you "kinda wanna get something done." In terms of ambition, hipsters clearly skew towards the "If it rains takes the bus" end of the spectrum.

Fortunately though the acting in the film suddenly gets a second wind, for at 8:19 the young lady has a total "bike-gasm," complete with contended sigh:

I suppose this means she has finally attained complete communion with the rhythms of New York City traffic, and by extension the universe, and it's a testament to the director's restraint that he doesn't follow it with an obvious symbol:



So there you have it. Hipsters come from Iowa, they don't like to think, they do like to ride bikes, and they ultimately want to be artists or something. Really, though, I can't think of many places less conducive to artistic endeavors than New York City, which essentially consists of wealthy financiers and the people who serve them. And speaking of financiers, a reader informs me that the time-traveling t-shirt-wearing retro-Fred from the planet Tridork is now in the business of market forecasting:

Given his ability to time travel, this may qualify as insider trading.

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Virtual Reality: Smugness is a State of Mind

As an anonymous blogger whose identity is a closely guarded secret, I endeavor to share as little personal information as possible on this blog. In fact, apart from the basics such as my social security number, my bank account numbers, and all my PINs and passwords (all of which you can see by clicking here), I make it something of a de facto policy not to bore you with the minutiae of my everyday life.

For this reason, you may not have picked up of the fact that for the past few months I've actually been living in Portland, OR. Yes, the truth is I've been "burnt out" on New York for quite some time and not too long ago I finally "hit the wall" as they say. The the ludicrous cost of living, the constant kvetching about bike lanes, and the wily talking raccoons who fleece you in games of three-card monty at every turn all conspired to precipitate my move.

To put it another way, I could no longer hack it in The Big Arple, and so I've finally been "spit out the back" like a Cat 5 on a group ride. (Or, if you prefer, I pulled a "Prolly.")

I should point out though that I haven't physically moved. Indeed, my body remains in Brooklyn, and as you know since you have access to all my banking information, I live in "hardcore luxury" in a million-dollar Williamsburg loft:

(That's actually me with the lady sideburns.)

However, given the stagnant real estate market, I've been having quite a difficult time finding a buyer who possesses just the right combination of douchiness, financial solvency, and general naïveté to meet my stratospherically high asking price for my smallish drywall box.

So instead, while my corporeal self still resides in "hardcore luxury," I've transported my consciousness to the soggy utopia that is Portland. I've done this by transcending the material plane and by realizing that physical existence is merely a state of mind--or by completely deluding myself, depending on how you look at it. It was surprisingly easy, too. First, I created an artificial Portland habitat in my home by purchasing a humidifier which I fill with Stumptown coffee instead of water. Then, I set all my clocks back by three and a half hours. (Portland is an additional half hour behind the rest of the western United States.) Finally, I completed my microenvironment by making Bikeportland my homepage and pretending it was the local news. So instead of waking up to stories about how restaurants are now using the bike lanes for valet parking, I now awake to delightful morsels of smugness like this:

"Yaaah, that's aaahsome!," I exclaim as I take another pull from the humidifier. "Another win for bikes...?" (People west of the Rockies seem to draw out their vowels and phrase statements as questions, and so I've adopted this manner of speech as well.)

Once I became acclimated to my Portland biodome, I then decided to "take it to the next level" by finding a full-time job. Sure, working can interfere with your process of self-discovery, but keep in mind a full Portland work week is only 15 hours long, which leaves us Portlanders plenty of free time for extracurricular smugness.

Obviously the most coveted employer in Portland is Chris King Precision Components, which is why they're widely referred to as the "G*ogle of the Willamette." However, when I told the Animatronic Chris Kingbot 9000 who conducts their interviews that I wanted to work on the "espresso tampon" line he showed me the door. (It was anodized pink, said "King" all over it, and had a 10-year warranty.) So I picked myself up off the floor, brushed the metal shavings off my Cane Creek t-shirt (which has a 110 year warranty), and resolved to press on.

Next, I went to Rapha, which is an even better place to work than Chris King since you don't have to operate any machinery--unless you consider riding a bicycle and being photographed in black and white to be "operating a machine." I was certain I'd nail this interview, and I even went so far as to don my bespoke cycling suit:

Unfortunately, I totally failed the "epic" portion of the interview when I finished dead last in the "Rapha Prospective Employee Gentleman's Soup Cook-Off." I also managed to catch a glimpse of their HR person's notes, and I distinctly saw the words "mustache not insouciant enough."

After Rapha, I headed over to Vanilla Bicycles to see if celebrity builder Sacha White could use an assistant, but it turns out there's even a five year wait list over there to clean the toilets--which, I might add, are absolutely filthy as a result.

Since it was clear I wasn't going to land an A-list Portland cycling job, I figured I'd have to dip my metaphorical ladle into the decidedly non-epic soup that is the Bikeportland job listings, and fortunately I was able to land something in short order:
This is Portland's equivalent of a "Midnight Cowboy" scenario, as bicycle food vending is the male prostitution of the Pacific Northwest, but it's still totally "aaahsome" since they observe Cross Crusade races as religious holidays and so I don't have to work on those days. (I do have to prove I raced though by presenting my boss with a pair of muddy "shants.")

Anyway, now that I was a real-life (in my imagination) Portland food vendor, I knew it was time to find "digs" befitting someone of my stature. So I turned to Craigslist, which is known as the "New York Times real estate section of the Willamette." Fortunately, it didn't take me long to find the perfect home:


A new home in an old house, on SE 52nd Ave north of Powell. Available in the beginning of April (officially), if you've contacted us before and are still interested, please email us again.

We're looking for someone or a couple that is interested in being part of a little start-up urban farm community. We don't own this house, but treat it as if we do, and are looking for someone that will do the same. We're looking for a housemate that is as interested in the "community" aspect of living here. We don't have to be best friends, but friendly conversation over a beer or tea on the porch is what we're after. A good candidate will be as into the gardening, helping with the fowl, building, and bettering our community as we are. We want this to be a light-hearted sanctuary. A place where you feel good about having a friend over, you feel good about coming home to, and feel good about taking care of. We sure do.

Neo-Hippies? Yes, probably.

(now if that didn't scare you)

It is about a 1,530 sq ft house, two stories plus dirt (not-so-dry) basement and attic. (A good amount of storage space in the attic, and bonus, it's dry)

A total of 3 bedrooms, all upstairs.

The room for rent looks east out over the back yard, and is 11'x13.5' About 148sqft which will rent for $450 or $550/month, depending if it's a single or couple. Room has average sized closet and large old double hung window. (It's the blue room pictured below, sorry for the low quality picture. The room is unfurnished. The rocking chair and dresser aren't included.

1 good sized bathroom (also upstairs) with full bath and shower with a great built-in for storage. Then the living room, dining room, entry way, small laundry/utility room (w/d included), and medium/large size walk-through kitchen with pantry are all down stairs.

It's a charming old farmhouse with front covered porch, back uncovered porch, old cherry tree in the back yard and a fenced garden with raised beds :) A somewhat wild yard (front and back) just waiting to be tamed into luscious Oregon gardens (which we hope to do). We have brought the farm back to the house in a sense. By raising chickens and ducks, building a coop and maintaining gardens, we're in the slow process of starting an urban farm. Hopefully we'll build a greenhouse by spring to start our years veggies, and the gardening potential is endless, really. We compost, have hopes to collect rainwater, and have dreams of solar panels.

Gas range/oven, gas furnace, and gas water heater. No dishwasher, so be comfortable doing them by hand.

Now you know about the house, here's some info on the house mates:

We're two active males who live a leisurely, but very busy, lifestyle (not to be confused with lazy) looking to share this SE house with a like minded individual or couple. We're into hiking, biking, camping and backpacking, road trips and day trips, cross country skiing, white water rafting and canoeing. We enjoy preparing home cooked meals and barbecues. We're friendly to people and animals, and sometimes find humor in their (and our) silly behavior. People watching entertains us; we enjoy spending time with friends, and making new ones. Thrift shopping excites us. Gardening, plants, and trees strengthen our collective spirit. We consider our selves open minded with the ability to empathize with others. Sunday conversations with a pot of coffee keep us grounded. One of us is self employed as a people and dog trainer. The other is a Cafe Manager at a popular eatery. We're queer, hetero, omnivore, and 420 friendly. We occasionally enjoy a cocktail after work, but rarely more than 2. We travel with an 11yo canine, who is often described by friends and strangers as a very good dog, a 2 year old canine who is clean, mostly well mannered, enjoyable to interact with and loves to play, and a 2 year old, very chill, indoor feline who manages the family. (additional animals considered on a case-by-case basis, though adding another dog to the house is pretty unlikely) We take great pride in the manners, habits, and cleanliness of our companions, as well as ourselves. Neither of us are neat freaks, but do appreciate a tidy household.

We're not into a scene; we enjoy DIY projects, occasional gatherings of friends, and generally a healthy well balanced enjoyment of life and its experiences.

Happy to enjoy interviews over a beer or tea.

Admittedly, as much as I ply him with artisanal craft ales and Stumptown coffee, the residual cynical New Yorker in me still pipes up now and again, and so a few items in this ad did give me pause. For example:

We compost, have hopes to collect rainwater...

How do you aspire to collect rainwater in Portland? This seems less like a goal than like something that's almost unavoidable. It's like saying you have hopes to collect mosquitos in summer, or you have hopes to acquire a bullet in your leg at a rap concert. Have they not managed to muster up the funds to purchase a bucket and leave it outside for a few days?

We're queer, hetero, omnivore, and 420 friendly.

Thank smugness I can seek refuge from the judgements of society in their idyllic urban farm community that has not yet "gotten it together" to stick a bucket outside. As soon as I move in I plan to take up permanent residence on the couch where I will proceed to test every limit of their politically correct tolerance by perusing heterosexual pornography, watching RuPaul's Drag Race on Logo, devouring spare ribs and vegan barley scones by the bucketful, and taking massive bong hits off of a 5 foot bong in the shape of a phallus while dressed in drag. (None of this behavior will seem odd to anybody who's attended a Cross Crusade race.)

Clearly, in Portland, tolerance has doubled over on itself like a sexually omnivorous yoga instructor performing oral sex on shimself.

I also enjoyed this:

We travel with an 11yo canine, who is often described by friends and strangers as a very good dog, a 2 year old canine who is clean, mostly well mannered, enjoyable to interact with and loves to play, and a 2 year old, very chill, indoor feline who manages the family.

I always enjoy prospective roommates who provide far too much information about their pets who, they don't seem to realize, are not people. Just say you have a couple of dogs and a cat, it's enough. Maybe specify the breed. Otherwise, most of us "get" how dogs and cats operate. Anyway, none of it matters, because if any of them bugs me while I'm "getting down" on the sofa with my ribs and my dong bong then they're going outside with the rainwater bucket.

By the way, notice that despite including a complete personality profile on both the dog and the cat they don't actually mention the sex. I suppose it would be very un-Portland to start assigning gender roles to them.

Finally though I managed to quell the knee-jerk sarcasm that they injected into me when I was born (standard practice in New York hospitals back in the 1940s when the stork "portaged" me into existence), and I'm pleased to say our urban farming community is coming along splendidly. I even procured a politically correct bamboo bucket which is collecting water (and possibly some urine) as I type this. I've also come to appreciate my roommates' painfully overbearing political correctness, which is much better than the sort of racial insensitivity you'll find up in Seattle:

I spotted this "ethnic care" section in a drugstore while I was there for the Bike Expo, and I must say I found it rather offensive--though their prices on "ethnic cleanser" were positively unbeatable.

But you know what they say: "You're not a real Portlander until you've had a case of beard lice gotten yourself a bicycle," and thanks to Craigslist I've picked up a real beaut:

Chopper bike / clown bike - $50 (North Portland)

Date: 2011-03-26, 8:57PM PDT

Reply to: [deleted]

Handmade Chopper bike

It is in overall ridable shape. It has back brakes (the kind that engage when you push back on the peddles)

I do not know the maker of this bike, so I cannot guarantee the structural integrity of it, but everything seems to be in good shape. Currently the tires need air and I don't have a pump to fill them up.

Selling for $50 (firm on the price). I live in North Portland near Lombard & I-5 (couple blocks from the MAX yellow line Kenton stop)

(503) 4 2 1 - [deleted]

I don't know about its integrity either, but as for my own, as a make-believe member of an urban farm community in the second-most bike friendly city in Canada's licey beard, I'm sure you'll agree its positively unimpeachable.

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