Dear Santa,
I know you don’t really exist, but if you did, shame on you. Naughty girls and boys deserve toys on Christmas, too. Also, why do the rich kids get more presents than poor kids? And, what’s your deal with the Jews? Anyhow, desperate times call for desperate measures. While I’m positive the letters I sent to you as a child ended up in my Dad’s office shredder (and not some courtroom in a black-and-white movie), I am at a loss and think it is time to reach out again. Perhaps, writing letters to you is not just a modern rehash of a jumble of European folk traditions. Instead, it is a more symbolic ceremony of learning to not ask for material goods, but more lofty requests, like pieces of men and good will hunting on earth or something. Just kidding—it’s a way for the rich kids to ask their parents to buy them more toys. But, let’s pretend it’s the latter.
And, in pretending this letter finds you well, Sinterklass, whether you are reading it in front of a warm Dutch oven or you’re having your trusty companion, Black Peter, read it for you (assuming he can read), let me request on this year’s lovely Yuletide something not quite physical. Not a trinket or some other impermanent present. Not a wooden pickle. Just like the Hallmark channel movies demand of rich Americans—who somehow still aren’t satisfied in life during the holidays—I ask of you, Father Christmas, to bring a functioning music scene to Portland in 2020. One that will, perhaps, sustain all the losers who grew up (or moved) here to make a living of sorts in the performing arts.
If you’ve read any of my other columns in this here nudie mag, that I assume you’re snagging from Krampus’s coffee table (because a saintly fellow like you would never be caught dead with this smut), you probably know this is an ongoing gripe I have with this city (and, perhaps, the current local live music scene in general). Since I am trying to be less greedy, I only ask for you to sprinkle your solstice magic over this wet, little, dreary town, trying so desperately to be the Brooklyn of the Northwest. Sorry, I mean Silverlake...or Austin. Shoot.
It sounds like I’m hating, St. Nick, but I do love Portland and maybe the problems I have with it are simply a wider issue with the live music market in general. Still, I’m noticing a proof in the pudding—that Portland really isn’t living up to it’s potential. The two proofs being that we really haven’t produced a mainstream success story since Elliott Smith (who technically made it in L.A. and also wasn’t from here) and a general malaise among the people living here—simply trying to have a moderately fulfilling music career in a city that prides itself on being supportive of the arts.
Mr. Kringle, it wouldn’t be hard to make this happen. We have all the trappings of a thriving music community. Hell, if we tried harder, we could be the poor man’s Seattle! Instead, we flounder as a joke that even Fred Armisen got bored of retelling. Plus, the town basically rejected his generous spotlighting of the city (offering locals national attention and whatnot).
It appears Portland wants to stay small. People born and raised here insist the town has changed for the worse, when really it’s just artists moving here, because they’re sick of the plastic insincerity of Los Angeles or the unrealistic rent prices of San Francisco. It seems the big fish wanna keep the pond small. Maybe, there’s nothing you can do, Mr. Claus, to make these bourgeois old heads stop acting like crabs in a bucket—bitching and moaning at the influx of musicians, who are literally doing what these old heads came here to do ten years prior.
I guess what makes Portland different than Brooklyn or Silver Lake is that those hipster cesspools are used to a constant rotation of young talent, for better or worse. The community just runs with it, pumping out a Silversun Pickups or Grizzly Bear every so often. Granted, it could just be the larger populations in these gentrified hellholes that allow for some actual breakthroughs.
Maybe, it’s the actual money floating around. Still, Odin...I mean, Santa, I do believe Portland is just as capable of cranking out some darling hipster icons, if you just give us a little bit of holiday cheer and made us all get along. Those damn transplants from New Mexico can’t be our last hurrah. Come on, Zack Braff! Come to Portland and pick up another band for one of your dumb movies!
Maybe, there’s nothing you can do. One particular old head once told me that there are about ten thousand bands in Portland. That’s one for every sixty people. BUT, the optimist in me says that if sixty people showed up to every one of those bands’ shows and paid a five-dollar cover (and also purchased a shirt or two), well, what a wonderful little small pond this could be. Instead, it’s just a bucket full of crabs, nitpicking, gossiping and canceling each other into self-sabotaging puddles of woe.
Never mind, Santa. This is even too big a job for you, your abused animals and slave-labored factory.
Oh well. Happy Saturnalia, everyone! Tip your local musician.
Sincerely,
Beez
