Letter From Your Friend, The Editor

LETTER FROM YOUR FRIEND, THE EDITOR

My name it is nothing, my age it means less. —Robert Zimmerman.

I’m one of those who nods a good-day to strangers while strolling through the neighborhood. There used to be more of us, but our numbers are thinning. The theory behind this act of polite acknowledgement is simple and basic. We want a friendly community, peaceable and kind; all the aspects that exemplify the better side of human nature. These qualities do not arise from standoffish aloofness, attention buried in a phone.

It’s how I met the actor Steve Buscemi, back in the mid-2000s, right here in the Buckman neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. He was walking out of the original Hal’s Tavern on SE Morrison, looking flummoxed, steps stuttering, right eye twitching. People often appeared in this state walking out of Hal’s, especially new-comers.

“Good evening,” I said with friendly smile.

“I just lost fifty bucks in shuffleboard against a geriatric,” Buscemi replied.

I stopped, figuring my presence might offer condolence.

Buscemi continued. “He’s been drinking for 15 hours. The guy can’t pee straight, but he slides pucks as if he has a power over them, like they’re his goddamn shaman stones or something. Jesus. One minute he was using his right hand then the next he’s using his left. He’s so old and drunk that he doesn’t know if he’s left or right handed.”

“That’s Dan Dobbek,” I said. “He used to be a professional baseball player, major league. Was on the 1960 all-rookie team. Batted left, threw right.”

“Somnabitch,” said Buscemi. “I thought he was some sort of shuffleboard idiot savant.”

“Well, that’s how some graft. They come on pathetic.”

“I should have seen it coming. I am ashamed of myself.”

I asked, “What are you doing here, anyway. Some sort of Coen brothers movie?”

“No. Nothing like that. I have an uncle that lives here.”

“I’m sorry you lost money,” I said. “There’s a small bar around the corner. Come on, I’ll buy you a drink, Buscemi.”

“I’ll take you up on that but what are we, in the army? For chrissakes, call me Steve.”

I took Steve to a dive bar that is no longer a dive bar. This was before the indoor smoking ban. Inside, layers of haze and condensated breath from brown lungs rose and fell like a polluted lava lamp, distorting the definition of people. Steve loved it. We rolled dice and he made some of that fifty back. The locals and bartender didn’t mind losing to him. Steve was happy, their genial mood brought out his best qualities, and he cracked jokes, told epic tales of 1980’s New York that entertained everyone well after closing time.

It was late, around 4am, when Steve eagerly accepted a challenge to wrestle Tad Chi, a carpenter who is half Korean, half Iowa redneck. Tad said Iowa concrete rassling was tough. Steve said that back in the day he was a ringolevio champ on the streets of Brooklyn, and there’s no tougher wrestling than that. When I left, they were both on the floor in each other’s head-locks, twisting to gain leverage. Steve’s face was red, the tendons of his neck taut, and even though his teeth were grimacing, there was a devilish smile in it.

Yeah, Old Portland was great, but I don’t expect it to remain. Life doesn’t work like that. I may hold sentimentality for the past, only because I use it to craft the future. That’s what the past is supposed to be for, all that 20-20 hindsight has got to beworth something.

BUCKMAN is an accumulation charging into the New Portland living room. Some will say moose on the loose. Others liken it to the dash and leap of gazelles. Whatever, the presence of BUCKMAN is a wild force disrupting the boring sameness infiltrating our society. Put down the phone, remove the standoffishness. Hello. Good day. Come on in, the neighborhood is fine.

the temp