After attending two back-to-back shows at Portland’s very own beloved Crystal Ballroom in the sweltering Oregon summer heat, that takes place in May now, thanks to climate change, I got to thinking...maybe some of these old buildings that McMenamins goes to obsessive lengths to preserve, should be torn down. I kid. Back off, olds. I love old shit as much as the next underemployed English major. I even got their stupid little treasure hunt passport that I haven’t remembered to bring to one of their establishments in years. I get the gimmick. It works. It’s fine. Just for God’s sake, I don’t care what part of the building you have to tarnish the original woodwork of...just please put a fucking HVAC in the Crystal Ballroom. I’m not an engineer or an architect or even much of a writer, but I am confident it can be done. Maybe if I’m loud or repeat myself enough, it’ll happen.
Until it happens, I have been thinking about the little Nostalgia Empire that McMenamins controls across the Pacific Northwest and wondering what other old things they can buy, throw a coat of varnish on, and then get some wage slaves to sling overpriced drinks and mediocre food in. The possibilities are endless, and I’m honestly surprised Lord McMenamin himself hasn’t thought of any of these. If any of these becomes a reality, I will be demanding a percentage.
If there’s something that old, rich dads in sandals and Hawaiian shirts love more than The Grateful Dead, it’s fucking war machines. Especially if they’re older. I used to bike by this byproduct of the military-industrial complex every day to work, and it finally hit me just now that this would be the perfect spot to sit cramped next to your family that hates you and eat Cajun tots ’cause they’re the only good thing on the menu. Just kidding—I like a good Rubinater. Snot-nosed kids on a field trip to OMSI aren’t gonna admire the technical marvels of this underwater attack penis like a group of drunk fiftysomethings on the way to a Blazers game.
I’m getting ahead of the curve here. Malls are a thing of the past. They are a modern relic, and it’s up to someone with lots of money to preserve at least one before they’re all bulldozed to make room for Amazon warehouses or some bullshit tech startup campus. In retrospect, malls really will be a weird cultural blip, and it’ll be important for folks a century from now to at least have a physical example to look at because trying to describe it in words will seem impossible. What were those barbaric dolts of the late 20th century thinking?!? A concentrated communal market to bring people together that also isolated itself from any real living space ’cause it needed a small country’s worth of parking? Also, why is there an ice rink? Anyway. Lord McMenamin should just buy this whole place now and have a little Boomer Walkable Vacation Paradise that would put Edgefield to shame. It doesn’t make sense now, but as more and more of these archaic structures get demolished, it’ll become the ultimate tourist attraction. Each vendor stall could be its own little overpriced pub. They could have mock kiosks dotted throughout, pretending to sell smartphones. See, back in those days, those ugly fucking goggles you’re wearing? The primitives, back in the early oughts, had a version that they had in their pockets that they had to use their hands with. The brewers better get on making an orange hazy pale called the Orange Julius. Hot Topic sounds like some kind of spicy sandwich.
The thing is, most of the surviving Old Town bars and restaurants use this tunnel system as their storage and break room. I’m not sure how the legality of it works. I know that the walking tours can bring mouthbreathing tourists through whenever they please, so there must be some kind of grey area. If anything screams Old Portland Nostalgia, it’s the made-up stories about sex workers falling down elevator shafts and haunting downtown pizzerias. Yes. Made up. Sorry. I know the guy who made it up to get more business. Pull off the ghost mask, and you’ll realize capitalism was the monster all along. Either way, this is a goddamn goldmine for His Royal Highness, the Duke of McMenamin. A bunch of sepia-toned old photographs of old sailors and whores, cavorting in the seedy watering holes from the turn of the century. Fabulous moustaches and exquisite flapper dresses. Scavenger hunts in that little passport thing to find the names of murdered maidens and shanghaied drunkards etched into bricks that were actually etched by greedy small business owners. And you’re underground! Far away from the tent dwellers on the dirty streets above that terrify the olds and the rich.
It honestly surprises me that there’s not a McMenamins Strip Club yet..or at least a burlesque show. No nipples, panties on. That’s family-friendly, right? I don’t know what Disney says is okay these days. Before I get any pushback, most of the Earl of McMenamins’ establishments are 21 and over. These are playgrounds for adults, not for children. And this is Portland. It’s up there with the Blazers and being on fire every day Fox News says it is, as an identifying factor of the city. We already have the Acropolis. McMenamins should put their hat in the ring. And the oldest strip club in Portland? Come on! It screams "McMenamins Old Mary’s" or something equally cringey. I don’t care what structural damage to that building caused Mary’s to move to a bigger and safer building two blocks away. Lord McMenamin clearly cares not for the safety or integrity of the buildings he owns. It’s part of the charm—just like that sagging ceiling! The pole will hold it up...
