Weird Portland sightings

There used to be a homeless guy in NW who liked to wear lots of skirts. He'd have 4 or 5 on at a time, and most of the time I saw him, he was lifting his skirts to pee on something in the middle of the after noon.

I wonder what happened to that guy...

About a year ago, a boyfriend was visiting me from across the country. He lives in a small town in Alabama. I wanted to show him a bit of Portland, give him a feel for the city. This was in the middle of the summer. We were eating lunch in a restaurant on Hawthorne around 36th or so, and a guy in a full-body polar bear suit, complete with giant head, came wandering lazily down the street past the restaurant window. I thought it was the perfect cap-off for the tour. :)

Man I love and miss Portland!

On Homeless Men, Or, My New Friend "Porkchop".
I was coming out of the local ghetto mart and almost smacked into a loaded shopping cart. There was a 50 something year old man with a green mohawk standing on the other side of the cart in an alcoholic haze. Bleary eyes fixating on me he weaves my way reaching a hand into his pocket where he fishes around a bit before triumphantly brandishing what seemed to be two pieces of once white Wonder bread with a grey gristly piece of something between em. With the throaty growl that comes from drinkin and smokin since the age of 7 he asks, "You wanna buy a porkchop sammich?"

Shit no, man. Put some Saranwrap on that thing. Effin Porkchop sammich indeed. Gave him some beer money and ambled off chuckling to myself. Met a local hooker down the road, a real amazon. She always hits me up for "Fifty-cents", but compliments me first. "Daaaaammmn girl, you sure be wearin' them boots. Where'd you get them? Look fiiiiine. Hey, you got fiddy cent"? Nope, just spent it on a porkchop sandwhich...

A couple of months ago I saw a skinny guy dressed in a full lycra spiderman costume (the oldschool spidey) with the mask and everything. He was running down Powell near the Safeway. At first I thought he was jogging and had a weird sense for athletic fashion, but then he started ducking behind bushes and acting all sneaky. He would run a little way, then dart behind a bush for a couple of seconds, peak out and then dash to a tree.

I got a "free hug" on Monday on Alder St. :)

Not that unusual around here, but not that common around the country. I love hippies. :)

On two different smoke breaks, today, 5th and Washington, DT. A woman in a leotard doing yoga on the wet sidewalk. A middle aged couple with a boombox on top of the trashcan singin and dancin fit to bust. Damn, I love this town.

walking down Hawthorne yesterday I passed a big, burly, industrial-rock looking guy on a cellphone. Seriously tattooed, septum piercing, black band t-shirt, shaved head...and overheard him saying: "tonight at the bar we've got a Michael Jackson tribute band playing. I mean, who doesn't love a motherfuckin' MICHAEL JACKSON TRIBUTE BAND!!??"
..not that weird but definately in the happily absurd category

this was a few years ago, but was with a couple of friends late at night near halloween. Picking cherries off a neighbors tree (with permission of course). Suddenly, a man comes walking down the block, white linen robes, tattered sandals, long hair, dragging a cross. Jesus. He walked all the way down the block and disappeared. Crazy. I think I went to church the next day.

Walking down this weekend, I stumbled on two big piles of snow on, like, SW Park a block of Burnside.

It was absolutely inexplicable until someone walked by know told me there'd been a big snowboarding demonstration there, and snowboarders had come down a ramp out of a second story window.

The snow was still there when I walked by a couple days later.

i was walking on division, between 34th and 35th in SE, and passed a house with an ordinary looking landscaped brick wall. very normal, except every crevice of the scalloped bricking had a little McDonald's looking toy sitting on it. There was miniature Furbie, a few pokemon, a random egg sandwich looking thing, maybe over 30 toys, all perched on little ledges in front of this house. very fun to look at.

I was riding the 10 to downtown and saw a person with the wackiest bike helmet and coat ever. The helmet had the head of a toy siberian tiger on the top of it and the rest was covered with matching faux fur. The coat was shaggy brown with huge bunny ears (think donnie darko) that stood up when they pulled on the hood. The person seemed to discover while on the bus that the hood would not fit over their bike helmet. oh portland.

downtown, on burnside just north of the fez:
a girl stands on the corner talking on a cell phone. down the block, a man is walking with a large boom box blaring generic loud music. as he reaches the girl on the cell phone, he turns the bom box vertically and shoves it, speakers first, nearly into the face of the girl on the cellphone. lasting less than a second or two, the incident's punchline is the nonchalance with which boom box man didn't even break his stride from holding the boom box on his shoulder to throwing the sound at "girl on phone" to continuing across the street.