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I hear some big fancy magazine has declared Portland the most "insufferable" city in America. Is the national media's love affair with Portland over? And more important, who's to blame? Was it something we said?
—This Fucking Hipster
Jeez, Hipster, you kiss your mother with that tongue? Please, just make with the questions and leave the gratuitous profanity to me.
For those who haven't heard, the cover of the current issue of The Weekly Standard does indeed feature a caricature of stereotypical latte-swilling slackers under the headline "Insufferable Portland: The hipster haven where government runs amok."
But before you go sobbing into your Rogue Bacon Maple Ale, be aware that The Weekly Standard is a right-wing rag that's been called the "neo-con Bible." (This makes it approximately as popular in Portland as Thrasher magazine is in Pyongyang.) Having TWS call you insufferable is like having the guy from Nickelback tell you that your band sucks.
Having read the piece, I'll console you with the same platitude Mom employed whenever the other kids would weigh me down with microphone stands and toss me in the river: they're just jealous. And this time, it's actually true!
The article spends half its length gushing over our natural, cultural and gastronomic virtues before grousing that it's all spoiled by—get this—the urban growth boundary. In The Weekly Standard's laissez-faire theology, land-use planning qualifies as "government run amok." (Arizona cops asking for "Your papers, please," is, of course, merely the free market in action.)
Mind you, I sometimes find Portland insufferable myself. But to employ an old analogy: I can call my mom a bitch all I want. You, however, cannot call my mom a bitch. It's moments like this I wish I were famous enough to merit a New York Daily News headline: "Doc to TWS: Suck my balls."
WWeek 2015