THE GOBLIN NEWSLETTER 68

I don’t talk enough about the things I’d like to see. I’d like for each region in America to work hard on amplifying, refining & exaggerating the positive aspects of their culture & be honest about, identify & work on the negative elements. Regional therapy. This would be for the improvement of that region’s people & visitors. I’d like for each city to work to identify their key positive traits & accentuate them, work on them, communicate them so hard you can’t not know immediately what those traits are. For example, Portland, City of Roses. Easy. You shouldn’t be able to look in a direction & not see roses. The streets should be lined with rose bushes. Restaurants should be excited to try new dishes using roses, liqueurs, ice cream, tea, salads, what have you. The city is about weird possibilities & wearing your heart on your sleeve. The architecture should be evocative of the cross-roads between the ocean, the mountain, the gorge & river dominated. The city has tons of bridges, is at the meeting of two enormous rivers & has a port. Artists should be celebrated & encouraged here. There is a long & vital history of hard working & really good Rock&Roll bands that haven’t managed to crack national success but so many hometown heroes. Portland is the birthplace of Louie, Louie by the Kingsmen, a song with such obfuscated delivery it was banned for being potentially obscene. Portland too often settles at being in the shadow of Seattle or the Bay Area, but it has something distinctly different to offer. Politically, Portland has been defined too often by others too. Portland was labeled “Little Beirut” by George Bush & that kind of angry protest. Protesting is a reaction, one of the few strategies available to the least of us. Solving actual problems would be something to be proud of, not flying into a rage over the world’s injustices. Even oysters produce pearls from their irritation. The rest of Oregon should feel proud of Portland, not because it reflects the limited vision of their rural values, but because it gives you a refreshing feeling of human potential when you visit. I’d like to see something similar repeated all over the country.