Portland, Oregon

The skyline of downtown Portland

“Maine or Oregon?”

~ Oscar Wilde on Portland

“I now build my statue here, because hippies no care...”

~ Chairman Mao on Portland

“Wannabes and Allies”

~ ATX

Portland is the largest city in Oregon and the second touchiest city in the world after Eugene, Oregon. It is often regarded as being the world's second-largest hippie commune behind New York City.

P-town is located deep within The Forest That Nobody Cares About. The city is known for each and every resident having an iPhone and a fixed-gear road bike, except for the cool outsiders who own a Blackberry and ride 21-speed mountain bikes, and for the unhealthy level of coffee and beer consumption - 12.3 gallons of each per capita per hour. Portland is also the Seagull and crow capital of the world. It's name was copied by fucking yanks who copied every other name in their country, the United States of and so on.... from the Isle of Portland, in Britain.

Demographics

It would be unfair to generalize and suggest that the people of Portland are unsophisticated despite evidence to the contrary such as:

“ The people in Portland are fucking awesome and know how to have a good time- If you know what i mean. 0_0...Were like New Yorkers but cooler and aren't such assholes. Oh ya, and the guy who made "Party like a Rock Star" was born here. Really!I promise! ”

...so we won't, even though we just did.

“ Keep Portland Weird ”

This is what Portlanders claim is their motto, but we all know it's them building their defense for when someone sues Portland for the amount of freaks they have. The common perception is that Portlanders love their freaks.

"Keep Austin Weird" is the slogan adopted by the Austin Independent Business Alliance to promote small businesses in Austin, Texas. The phrase arose from an offhand remark by Red Wassenich (a librarian at Austin Community College) in a phone call to a local radio station. He and his wife, Karen Pavelka, placed the slogan on bumper stickers, distributing them free to businesses in Austin.

Austin's message of support for local businesses has inspired similar individualistic movements in other cities, including Denton, Texas; Santa Cruz, California; Portland, Oregon; Tampa, Florida; Raleigh, North Carolina; Decatur, Georgia; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Louisville, Kentucky; Fayetteville, Arkansas; Indianapolis, Indiana; Missoula, Montana; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Arlington County, Virginia; and Boulder, Colorado, and Mr Rogers' Neighborhood.

History

Portland in 1841

Early Days

Portland was originally discovered in 1806 by Meriwether Lewis and William Hung on their famous 'Voyage of Discovery' to search for the Northwest Passage. At the time of this discovery, Portland was peacefully inhabited by indigenous peoples, such as Hippies,Goths, Cackle-Moose, and Multimedia-Nomore people. Most of them were exterminated by the various exotic diseases brought into the area by the evil white explorers such as smallpox, syphilis, Alcohol, the IRS and democracy.

A minor controversy arose when it came time to name the city. Prominent citizen Jebediah Springfield wanted to name the city Portland, after his hometown in Maine while the sheriff Mark Hatfield wanted to name the city Chamique. The impasse was broken after a lengthy game of Axis & Allies from which Springfield emerged victorious. Hatfeild went on to challenge Springfeild again, this time in the steel cage, but was disqualifyed when his manager "Captain" Lou Albano struck Springfeild with a table leg.

Modern historians have, generally speaking, reached a consensus in their understanding of the demographics of Portland in the early days. An except from a recently published study is shown below.

Clinker	Mass%	Cement	Mass%
Tricalcium silicate (CaO)3.SiO2, C3S	45-75%	Calcium oxide, CaO, C	61-67%
Dicalcium silicate (CaO)2.SiO2, C2S	7-32%	Silicon oxide, SiO2, S	19-23%
Tricalcium aluminate (CaO)3.Al2O3, C3A	0-13%	Aluminium oxide, Al2O3, A	2.5-6%
Tetracalcium aluminoferrite (CaO)4.Al2O3.Fe2O3, C4AF	0-18%	Ferric oxide, Fe2O3, F	0-6%
Gypsum CaSO4	2-10%	Sulfate SO4

Following the settlement of the area by evil white settlers, Portland quickly grew from a backwater trading post into a backwater roadside attraction. The fortunes of Portland began to change, however, in 1839 with the discovery of trees in the hills surrounding the city. The Great Tree Rush of 1839 was on, bringing with it a massive influx of lumberjacks, most of whom followed the newly-constructed Oregon Trail, avoiding Interstate 5 because, you know, traffic there sucked that time of day.

Problems Mount

The massive influx of lumberjacks brought with it a host of problems. Between 1839 and 1847, flapjack-related deaths increased at a yearly rate of 500%. In addition, the lumberjacks brought with them strange new ways, such as using public water fountains as bidets, and therefore had problems assimilating into the local culture of the evil white people.

Tensions between locals and the immigrant lumberjacks mounted until 1849, when the lumberjacks mistakenly cut down the city's tallest tree (442 ft tall). Outraged locals began slaughtering the lumberjacks by the thousands. Many lumberjacks escaped Portland, resettling in Salem and in caves behind Multimedia falls. Although this part of early Portland history (along with all the rest of it) is largely forgotten by Portlanders, it is sometimes cited as a major cause of the present animosity between Portlanders and the timber industry.

Modern History

The Made in Oregon sign above Old Town.

Portland was the major port in the Pacific Northwest for much of the 19th century, until Babe Ruth was traded to the Yankees. Portland gradually declined starting in the 1920s when direct railroad access between the deep water harbor in Seattle and points east by way of Stampede Pass were built.

Following the fiasco of the 1932 World's Fair (total attendance: zero), Portland was closed and most of its population relocated to Oklahoma. World War II saw the city's takeover by the Russian Navy under the command of General Svelpatton Razbutov, who used it as a distribution center for tea towels.

For years the city has had to concentrate on less conventional exports such as marijuana, computer processors, marijuana, Christmas trees, marijuana, meth and marijuana. However in the 1990s, someone discovered that Portland was Cool(tm). Locals were bewildered because the coolest thing that happened in Portland was the recording of Louie Louie (otherwise known as the song no one understands). Oh yeah Courtney Love, future wife of Kurt Cobain, used to come to Portland to score drugs, but I don't know if she was cool then. However, this meant local inhabitants could sell overpriced souvenirs and drugs to tourists and wannabe hipsters, the local evil white people became tree huggers and opened more strip clubs.

Beards

Males born in Portland are either born with a full beard and/or a lisp, regardless of their sexual orientation (Which it always gay (Or at least bi (But even then they are pretty gay))).

Politics

Starbucks and Coffee People, the two main political parties in Portland

Political Parties

Politics in Portland are dominated by two major parties: Starbucks and Coffee People. Starbucks partisans are known for wanting to save the whales, driving Subarus, loving Seattle, playing baseball, wearing goatees and by paying five dollars for a cup of slave picked coffee. Stabucks' most popular varietal coffee blend is Kofi Annan. Coffee People members are known for wanting to save the trees, driving Subarus, hating Seattle, watching soccer, and wearing full beards. Their best-selling blend is Sinsemilla Munchee.

In the year of 2006 (2006 CE), a coup was staged by the Starbucks party. There were no survivors among the leaders of the Coffee People party. The free-lovin' reprecussions of these actions are yet to be discovered, although local Starbucks have recently introduced a new blend, Soylent Red.

Elected Officials

Mayor Homo

Mayor Sam Adams, won a bitterly contested election against Tom Potter (a lot, a little or no relation to Harry Potter [they might actually be the same person] ) in 2008. Adams prevailed by limiting campaign contributions to $5 per person, organizing a grass-roots canvas of the entire city, and handing out free kittens. Adams is also a gay pedo. Other notable elected officials include Michael Moore and Lance Armstrong on the city council and Osama bin Laden on the school board.

Police Controversy

The Portland Police have been engulfed in controversy due to their Negro Shoot-to-kill policy. Since the policy was implemented in 1995, police in the Rose City have shot and killed 785 people. Of those, 784 were black and the other one "sorta looked black" to officers. The killings, however, have caused great outrage and sparked riots in the white community (partly because many residents of Portland regarded Negros as mythical creatures having never seen one personally) and at least one formal written complaint from surviving remnants of Portland's black community. However, these shootings have all been justified by the Police bureau since in each instance the perpetrator was carrying one of the following deadly weapons: letter opener, box cutter, keys, pick comb, driver's license, teeth, and socks. Normally, the police in this city are only visible in groups of 3 or 4 at the most but during a huge waterfront protest, columns of police cavalry are visible trotting towards the hippies and "anarchists"(anarchist in this case is a simile for middle class white kid who dresses in black and ruins a peaceful protest by throwing feces and being generally retarded). During protests, bicycle officers can also be seen swarming on street corners punching people who look like my brother in the faces (it's not police brutality if they deserve it) and ignoring the drug dealers freaking fleeing waterfront in fear of the huge crowds of pigs this sentence no period

Police reassured the public by putting neon lettering on many of their stations in a really quite fetching shade of blue.

Public Transportation

Drug dealers, muggers, and corporate crooks exiting the Portland Streetcar

Portland boasts a comprehensive public transportation system known as Tri-Met. Busses, light-rail trains, streetcars, freak-bikes, horses, broomsticks, giant shoes made by little children in a magic workshop, and jet packs operated by public employees cover nearly every destination in the metropolitan area. Tri-Met's founders created this form of public transportation after many Doctor Who fans protest that there are no blue police boxes for public transport, the designers failed like Uwe Boll. Tri-Met is designed specifically with the needs of drug dealers, petty thieves and hobos in mind. The buses and trains provide an ideal drug distribution network; the new Green Line MAX train opening in September was specifically designed to ship meth into town from Clackamas. They also ferry rich people into poorer areas of the city, bringing a mugger's business to his door-step. Additionally, all Tri-Met vehicles are air-conditioned, which makes them a perfect place for the city's homeless to beat the heat. However, since Portland has one of the highest bicycle to homeless person ratios in the nation, homeless people seldom use the facilities.

The homeless in Portland getting about.

In 2005 Tri-Met celebrated the fact that public transportation-caused deaths slipped to third place on the list of most common causes of death in Portland, preceded by police shootings and caffeine overdoses. Bus and train-related deaths had skyrocketed in previous years. City officials became particularly concerned after each driver began painting a pedestrian on his or her vehicle for each person killed. Tri-Met turned back the tide in 2002 by making the Employee of the Month award based solely on who had the fewest kills that month. So far the record is held by Bob Cockman, who killed only 22 people in June of 2006.

Unlike many other cities in the US, the people of Portland use a radical technology for transportation which scientists refer to technically as 'legs'. Evidence suggests that this technology may have been invented by Nike, a major employer in the area perhaps most famous for inventing feet. Local dyslexic Christian frequent flyer groups based (mostly) in Maine have however challenged this pointing to Intelligent Design as a way of proving that 'evidence' is the devils merps. Some critics have argued that "it's all part of an evil scheme to enslave the developing world and force everyone to wear shoes" [2]. An Adidas spokesperson recently suggested during an interview at their Portland office that the left foot was actually invented in Germany by an Adidas designer many years before Nike. An out of court settlement is expected.

Religion

Although all non-Elvis based religions are officially banned in Portland, local authorities do issue permits on a case by case basis as 'it's only a bit of fun'. Consequently a number of churches have sprung up. Attendance and popularity is largely dependent on how funny or eye catching the sign outside the church is. This has led to an arms race between competing churchs. In one famous case a church previously known for it's hilarious signs that often started with 'My mother in law' etc or 'Fat ? He was so fat that' etc recently and famously escalated to a putting a sign outside that said 'Jesus had a big cock'. This was, of course, meant to be a hilarious play on words about the size of the holy penis and that thing about the male chicken thing in the garden before jesus got nailed to that bit of wood in that book, you know, that big book with all the writing and stuff.

See also

• Oregon
• Salem
• Coffee
• Canada
• Hippies
• Marijuana

References

✶ American Old West ✶