Kvetchfest

Maybe it's the return of the rain, or the new unemployment figures, or the Blazers' flameout in Dallas. Whatever the reason, WW readers remain in a particularly peevish mood, as evidenced by their response to our roundup of local gripes ("Kvetchfest III: The Bitch Is Back," WW, April 16, 2003.). Here's Round 2 of what gets on their nerves.

LEAF US IN PEACE!
There's nothing more annoying. You're sitting in your back yard enjoying a rare sunny afternoon of peace and quiet, and on cranks a leaf blower, bellowing like a Harley without a muffler. Not only do these monstrosities contribute to noise pollution, air pollution and depletion of fossil fuel, it takes at least twice as much time to clear a lawn with one than it does the old-fashioned way. Come on, morons, grab a rake.

Steve Armbrust
Southeast Portland

BUTT HEADS
I don't really care that folks want to do all the things to themselves that cigarettes do. That's their deal, not mine. What galls me is when you see these knuckleheads hanging outside their buildings, walking the streets, or waiting at bus stops, and at the close of their smoke, they toss the butt on the ground. What are they thinking? That a street sweeper will pick it up? That the rain will wash it away? (Where? Into the Willamette?) And if they're not thinking these things, why aren't they thinking?

Lex
Northeast Portland

RADIO RERUNS
I'm sick and tired of hearing the promos from the news stations, especially KXL and KEX, that sound like breaking news ("big accident at corner of 4th and Burnside"), until halfway through the spot you learn that it's a

recording from a three-day-old news broadcast. Can't these guys get the least bit creative, for God's sake?

Rolf Glerum
Northwest Portland

LOCAL RAGS

How about the fact that The Oregonian runs a column on Saturdays titled "Religion and Ethics," as if the two subjects had anything in common?

Garey Fouts
Northeast Portland

You missed one important kvetch: The Mercury. The Mercury is the embodiment of what sucks about Portland; it is simultaneously unbearably pretentious in a trustfundian, post-meta-liberal arts school dropout indie-rock style AND the most superficial, smug, cynically meaningless piece of drivel I have ever read. And the fact that the paper is merely a B-grade rip-off of Seattle's more intelligent but also more cynical The Stranger further reinforces the untrue claim that Portland is merely a crappier version (as Roger Corman's Carnosaur is to Jurassic Park) of Seattle.

Drew Jameson
Southeast Portland

My gripe is self-important, self-righteous media types who think that their personal peeves make for interesting reading. I suggest that you take your Kvetchfest and leave town since the residents of this city are so annoying to you. Alternatively, I suggest you take this week's issue, roll it up tight and SHOVE IT UP YOUR CANDY ASSES. Thus let it be written, thus let it be done.

Sincerely,
former reader

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