Men’s Health named Portland, Oregon “America’s Most Patriotic City.”
The magazine came to its conclusion after factoring the number of registered voters who turned out for state and federal elections in 2004 and 2008, money spent on military veterans, percentage of residents who volunteer, and finally, sales of fireworks and U.S. flags.
Portland wins lots of media contests and has long been the darling of The New York Times, but this new designation from Men’s Health Magazine is surprising to me, for Portland is home to lots of free thinkers. Of course, free thinkers are the people who make America great, but they’re often marginalized in favor of another, simpler view of patriotic Americans.
Speaking of Portland’s free thinkers, I met Jeffrey Thomas at Meatapalooza on Wednesday and just days later a huge, flattering feature by D.K. Row appears in The Oregonian on Thomas.
Row is the paper’s art critic and he asks Thomas, a former art dealer, some great questions about the art of selling art.
Q: Can you remind us how tough it was to sell art back in the ’80s here in Portland?
A: Remember, this was a timber economy and in the 1980s, Oregon went through its first of many recessions. We went through three years of lapsed timber sales; this little business called Intel was just starting up, so we really had no tech industry. Interest rates for houses were 12.5%.
So it was a tough time to get interest in cultural activity. There was a lot of money in town but you did not show it. It was very old school WASP. Nobody showed their wealth; no one supported anything. There was this anti-philanthropic thing going on. You just didn’t show that you had money. That made for a tough environment to create cultural activity and awareness that would draw people here.
Q: And people think it’s tough now.
A: It was nothing like it was then. There was just no cultural awareness. It was a country club for a few families and everyone else was part of the working class. There were few galleries, and only a handful of people interested in them.
Today, Thomas is a producer and photographer’s rep for Polara Studio. His Polara bio says, “…in his mind every day is a birthday party, which sort of explains the applause and flowers that he constantly showers upon everyone around him.”
Fred Wilson is a managing partner at Union Square Ventures, a venture capital firm. He writes the popular “A VC” blog (“musing of a VC in NYC”), and has invested in numerous game-changing tech companies, including Twitter, del.icio.us, Etsy, and FeedBurner.
I’ve been reading his blog off and on for years, but have never seen him speak. Thanks to The 99 Percent, part of the Behance Network, we can now hear his thoughts on the all the various ways to run your own show.
Wilson describes various types of organizations that entrepreneurs run.
the sole proprietorship
the partnership
marriage partners as business partners
the boutique
the federation
the project
the tour bus
the startup
the breakout
the company
I feel like my new company, Bonehook LLC, borrows freely from several of the examples above, namely the sole proprietorship, the partnership, the boutique, the federation and the project. I’m the sole owner of Bonehook, but I have a partner in AdPulp. In the creative services arena, small firms are often called boutiques, and I have no problem with that. The federation model that Wilson describes is perfectly resonant, as the work Bonehook does is totally dependent on my network of collaborators who step forward on a project basis to help solve client’s marcom problems.
I also like the examples Wilson gives for each model: Matt Drudge; Openshop Studios; DailyLit; Union Square Ventures; Allen & Co; Avatar; Hype Machine; Red Stamp; Foursquare; and Twitter.
KEXP in Seattle is one of a handful of the best radio stations in the world. WNCW in Spindale, NC is another. I’m also a big fan of KGNU in Boulder and WWOZ in New Orleans.
Stanton Moore, Robert Walter and Will Bernard recently dropped by the KEXP studio to perform “Pot Licker” live.
That’s one of the great things about community radio–the station’s support the hell out of the artists and the artists pay them back with kick ass jams, live in studio.
Musically speaking, I’ve been tripping down Nostalgia Lane over the past few days. I picked up The Marshall Tucker Band’s self-titled album and Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy, both released in 1973 (when I was eight years old). I’ve also been mining YouTube for all the goodness that exists there, and there’s plenty to mine. For instance…
In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster–now in its 52nd day–British Petroleum is losing value fast, which means the company’s shareholders are taking a huge hit.
In response, British businessmen and politicians are rallying around BP and the company’s beleaguered CEO, according to Reuters.
On Monday, the chief executives of some of Britain’s biggest companies including Vodafone, BG Group and WPP gathered for a party at BP’s headquarters to show their support for embattled BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward.
BP confirmed the meeting but denied it was a party.
London Mayor Boris Johnson, a close ally of Prime Minister David Cameron, said the threat to BP’s dividend, which U.S. politicians want cut, was a “matter of national concern”.
“There’s something slightly worrying about the anti-British rhetoric that seems to be permeating from America,” he told BBC radio.
The gusher is leaking 40,000 barrels of oil a day–much higher than earlier estimates–but shareholders are worried about their investment and anti-British rhetoric. I would say I’m stunned, but I’m not.
I’d also say I’m stunned that a company is allowed to operate a rig like this off our coast with no plan for the inevitable worst case scenario, but I’m not. A lot of rich people have spent a lot of money to buy influence and keep regulators at a cozy distance. And this is what you get when there’s no real oversight.
See more photos of the damage this gusher continues to cause at Boston.com. The image above of a reporter swimming in oil is comes from Time Magazine. And here’s a report from ABC News:
Leftover Cheese Spread has always been a personal journey through the music that moves me. Unlike some other sites I produce, this one was never meant to “take off” or be anything other than a good place to share notes about the bands we love.
This is what happened: the PR machine that helps promote bands, labels and shows realized what an impact blogs and social media in general is having on the music business. So now, publicists contact me regularly to help get the word out about new bands. The great majority of these appeals go unheeded however, because I typically prefer that a friend turn me on to new music, not a publicist.
Screw it, maybe I can shift a gear. Maybe, I can dig through a shitload of old emails from publicists right now and start sharing with you the wealth of material that’s available. Here, I’m doing it.
That takes me back about one month through my email. As you can see, it’s unending. Lots of talented people have lots to say and they know how to say it. It’s sort of mind-boggling to consider just how much music there is to discover and enjoy.
Of all the band I listed above, I especially like indie rock duo, Lloyd’s Garage, from northern California.
Comparisons to The Black Keys are self-evident here, but hey, I like The Black Keys (which is why I just purchased their new album Brothers).
I’m impressed by what Craig “Dodge” Lile of My Old Kentucky Blog is building in Indianapolis at the moment. What started simply as a music blog back in 2004 is fast becoming a growing group of companies that support indie music and indie musicians around the nation.
Dodge’s most recent off-blog foray is Roaring Colonel Records, an Indianapolis label about to release its first full length—Black Teeth & Golden Tongues, the debut album from San Francisco-via-Indianapolis trio Burnt Ones.
Metromix Indianapolis asked Dodge, “Why start your own label amid the several labels already in Indianapolis? What makes RCR unique?”
Dodge: Right?! What am I thinking!? (Laughs.) No, well, I obviously believe I bring something new to the table. MOKB’s influence and status in the national/global online indie music community has me already working hard each and every day to influence and share new music.
This is just another form of that, but it offers a band real financial support to make their goals come fruition.
I get 300-plus emails each day from labels, bands and PR firms. It isn’t rocket-science — the PR side, I mean. The label side is VERY challenging, a little scary…but I love a challenge…at least until it bankrupts me!
Anyway, I see what they do every day…the good and the mistakes. I have a load of contacts and relationships in the industry. I believe I can do this. I want to try it.
From the looks of it, Dodge tries lots of things and it seems to be working well for him. He writes a popular blog, appears on Sirius Satellite radio’s Left of Center show (every Tuesday at 12pm EST), promotes concerts via MOKB Presents (The National is up next) and he captures video sessions with artists on Laundomatinee. Clearly, the new record label is a natural part of the overall outfit. Like work boots with overalls and a trucker’s hat.
Our friend Evil Vince was in the hizouse over the holiday weekend and he recommended two artists we’d never heard of—Appleton, Wisconsin singer-songwriter Cory Chisel and L.A. power trio The Entrance Band.
Evil knows his shit. Have a look and a listen…
It’s hard for me to say which band I prefer. I love the throwback nature of an awesome power trio and The Entrance Band is one of the better power trios I’ve heard in some time. Yet, the soup of roots, blues, gospel and Americana coming from Chisel and his Wandering Sons is highly intoxicating, as well.
I like to visit Omaha at least once a year to reacquaint myself with my place of origin. I need to walk the hills, breathe the air and feel the positive vibrations of the people of The Corn in order to remember who I am.
I am from the middle. The Heartland. It’s a place of immense beauty, but interestingly, not everyone can see it due to its subtle nature. My interest isn’t in moving people to see what I see in the vastness of the Nebraska sky or the swirly patterns of its rivers. It’s personal, this need to reconnect with the patterns of my making.
My grandpa, Eldon Burn, shared the best parts of Nebraska with me when I was young. For example, we used to load Prince in the station wagon and head south, past Nebraska City to farmland owned by friends. Prince (and later, Duke) always cried with excitement the entire ride, springing into action on the crunchy cold ground once we arrived, his nose and legs ready for duty. Duty meant finding a covey of Bob White quail, and Prince never failed to perform his assigned tasks, just as Eldon’s one good eye never failed to bring down one, two or three quail in perfect sequence.
It’s been decades since I have hunted quail, but the hunt is eternal. It’s the game that changes. Now I hunt for work, talent and hometown experiences that need revisiting.
Seeing the impressive collections at Joslyn Art Museum, especially all the Western and native art is an experience I need to have every so often. It helps me to vividly imagine what it was like for my ancestors who came from Europe to this totally wild place, where it was common to sleep with a rifle under your blanket in a house made from sod.
I think of the word “fierce” when I contemplate 19th century Nebraska. Even if you were headed for points beyond, just getting across the state on horse, foot or wagon would have been an epic journey. Just as it was an epic journey from the British Isles, France and Russia–the countries of my ancestors–to America and the Great Plains.
It goes without saying that people form their identities in response the climate and land where they live. On Sunday, I made it a point to climb the highest hill I could find near Omaha’s Old Market. From the pinnacle in Little Italy south of downtown, you can see for miles. In 19th century terms, you can “scout” and there’s a lot to pick up on, including a massive amount of building and rebuilding in downtown and along the riverfront.
In other parts of the U.S. ambitious developments are floundering. Not so in Omaha. Unemployment is under 5% and retailers have not fled, they’ve converged. There’s a new baseball stadium going up north of downtown, new hotels, new warehouse living, new running trails, a new pedestrian bridge across the Missouri, and that’s just a slice of the action.
Omaha has it going on, and I’m proud to see the city grow and become ever more vital to its inhabitants and visitors alike. If you’ve never been to Omaha and you don’t know people there, you might be wondering when you will have occasion to change that. There are myriad answers: the College World Series every June, Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder’s meeting, BigOmaha, or any number of concerts at Qwest Center or smaller indie rock shows at Slowdown, a venue owned by Saddle Creek Records. Once you visit, you will know people in Omaha, and that will make your return visits all the more enjoyable.
To see more photos from my visit, click over to this Flickr set.
SEATTLE—Out-spoken and fearless urban planning expert, social critic, author and journalist James Howard Kunstler is a man on a mission. He wants to shake the American people awake with his special brand of righteous anger, and tonight he’s on stage in a grand ballroom at the Westin to do just that.
Kunstler is here to deliver the opening keynote at Living Future 2010, “the unconference for deep green professionals” put on by Cascadia Region Green Building Council, a chapter of the U.S.G.B.C. (and my wife’s employer). Kunstler is an interesting choice to open the unconference, for he is a rabble-rouser of epic proportions.
He says, “People call me a ‘doomer,’ but I call myself an actualist.†One of the things he’s being “actual†about is suburbia, which he says is “the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world.†Kunstler says, “We’ve invested our identity in this. Suburbia is part of the American dream.â€
Kunster claims the suburban dream is over, despite our lingering dreams. He claims builders and others are waiting for the bottom, so they can resume building, but “no combination of alternative fuels will allow us to run suburbia.â€
Americans are conditioned to want something for nothing, he says. Kunstler reminds the liberal audience that President Obama said, “We won’t apologize for the American way of life.†Building on that, Kunstler says he is sorely disappointed by the nation’s elite cadre of environmentalists who are more concerned about producing electric cars than they are about living in walkable communities. His word for it: techo-grandiosity.
“We are not a serious society, not at all,†he practically spits form the podium. He tells a story about speaking at the Googleplex in Mt. View, CA. “The whole place is like a kindergarten. It seems the whole idea in business today is to be as infantile as possible.†Worse yet, Kunstler says the Googleites don’t know the difference between energy and technology, which is his way of saying technology isn’t going to solve all our problems.
Lack of political will is another sore point. He says we’re spending stimulus money to fix highways, when “we have a train system that would embarrass the Bulgarians.†Sadly, “we can’t afford to be clowns.â€
During the question and answer session, a psychologist in the audience asks Kunstler if he doesn’t have a more hopeful image he can share, one that will make an already paranoid people feel less paranoid. In true Kunstler fashion, he says, “we can’t fix everything with therapy.â€
When the talk is done, people applaud, but not as vigorously as they might. It seems the air’s been sucked out of this vast ballroom.
One attendee tells me he found Kunstler’s talk depressing. And therein lies the crux of the matter. Kunstler paints a broad canvas where all sorts of American ugliness are put plainly in view. Yet, most people working on solutions—like creating green buildings—are busy addressing one small part of the problem, not the entirety of the matter, and they want to feel good about their contributions. But Kunstler doesn’t care about making people feel good. His thing is to sound the alarm and make it ring loudly in our ears.
