That people go to Portland for its own sake isn’t unique among the cities I’ve visited. People go to Miami because it’s Miami, Asheville because it’s Asheville, even Atlanta, to a certain extent, because it’s Atlanta. In each case, there’s something inherent to the city’s ethos, it’s ineffable “vibe”, that draws people. And it’s a positive feedback cycle; when a bunch of people go to the same place, looking for the same vibe, they find it, and that vibe becomes ever more robust by virtue of their additions—which in turn makes the place even more attractive to the like-minded. But unlike Miami and Atlanta, who struggle to create an NBA basketball culture, the Portland vibe draws Portlanders to the Rose Garden Arena and fuels their enthusiasm for the Trailblazers.

I was an exception, by the way. I didn’t move to Portland because it’s Portland. I lived in Portland last year because that’s where I was when I ran out of money; I think this is largely why I remained a visitor. Even now, the irony that I am couchsurfing in a city in which I have an apartment—sublet through the NBA season—is appropriate, given my relationship with Portland. It’s a queer relationship, I think, being an unintentional resident (seemingly the only one) in a place so many people long to inhabit. It isn’t that I don’t like the Portland; I do, but I found it a might difficult to truly integrate myself in a place the primary attraction of which is drawing together people who want to be there. Instead, I was a visitor in a city that has nothing for visitors. Indeed, my father came to visit me a month after I arrived and the first day he asked me where we should go. What was there to see in Portland? I started, “Well, there’s…” but I couldn’t think of anything; I still can’t. Save the roses, when in bloom, there’s almost nothing must-see in Portland. It’s the inverse of New York City: a great place to live, but not to visit.

Don’t take my word for it. Ask any Portlander what there is to see in the city, and 90% of them will list Powell’s in the top five. That’s Powell’s, the small chain of large bookstores. “Well, have you been to Powell’s yet?” Powell’s? I should go to…buy a book? Indeed, Powell’s is the answer to many questions, in Portland. Just go on Citysearch and look for a great inexpensive place to take a date in PDX. That’s right: Powell’s, because nothing says romance like loitering in a bookstore.

Of course I don’t make a practice of telling locals I feel this way, or even saying it aloud, because any time I’ve said anything remotely ungushing about Portland, someone looks at me with terrible hurt in their face, as though I had just said their newborn baby looks like an embryo chicken. They shouldn’t feel that way. Being a great place to live, but not visit, is a boon to everyone in the city who doesn’t work in the tourism sector. Trust me, I’m a Newyorker who loathes the subway and walks everywhere. But even I find it necessary to take the subway from West 59^th street to West 23^rd street, to avoid the gridlock of tourism hell that is Midtown Manhattan.

Oh, I have affection for Portland, as well. Decent Ethiopian cuisine within an hour’s drive of great hiking and skiing, and under two hours from the pacific ocean? Gotta respect that. In general, I find Portland to be a nice place to spend one’s time when not luxuriating in the Oregon outdoors. Also, it’s hard not to find Portland’s earnestness charming—and highly amusing. I’ve never been to a place more desirous of distinctness; and that need spills into every conversation you’ll have with a Portlander about their city. It spills into the stands at the Rose Garden, too.

Some Portlanders speak of an all-but-imaginary tension between neophytes and natives, but I don’t see it. Or if it’s there, the locals certainly aren’t helping to keep newbies away—not even dreaded Californians. Whenever a local tells me about how things have changed, aren’t what they were, all these new people, they conclude by giving me a sales pitch for the city. That’s why I feel comfortable anthropomorphizing Portland: every last person here gives the impression of being something more than a shareholder in their city. In fact, Portland would best be defined as a city in which Portlanders live. And I feel that watching the Blazers, whether at the Rose Garden or Claudia’s, is even more about celebrating Portland than basketball.

Oh, that isn’t to say they don’t love their hoops here; 814 straight sellouts attest to that. I am curious about the reasons for the end of the streak and ebbing attendance, following it. You might figure it was because the Rose Garden has 8,000 more seats than the Memorial Coliseum, but they remained close to capacity in the new arena those first few years, despite the team’s decline. But I still recall reading about empty seats. Maybe there were a bunch of new corporate seats that weren’t regularly filled, when they stopped winning? I’m not sure. If it was difficult to get new Portlanders interested in the team, it may well have had a lot to do with them not winning, and the whole Jail Blazers thing—but I don’t think that quite covers it. Every single Portland immigrant I’ve met in the last year-and-a-half is so excited to be here. Finding a job—any job—friends, a place to live, a place in the community, for them just being here is destiny manifested; it’s winning. It seems perfectly understandable then, that those new Portlanders, without any Blazers roots, weren’t filling the stadium for a losing team. Losing was incongruous with their Portland experience. They couldn’t identify with something that wasn’t on the way up.

They do now. But I don’t think they’re fair-weather fans; they’re new fans, discovering something. The Trailblazers marketing department knows it. Their Rise with Us slogan is canny, but longtime fans don’t need it. Rather, it’s a message that resonates with the transplants and their desire to immerse themselves in the local culture of the city.  They all want to be Portlanders.  And Blazerness, the team encourages, is synonymous with Portlander-ness. The Blazers’ attendance figures indicate that it’s working, and so do other indicators of popularity. I have no idea what the Blazers television ratings look like, but I’m told the Blazers Edge is the most popular NBA team blog around, and my Portlander friends who couldn’t care less about basketball, when I met them, are talking Blazers. And I think the new fans will stick, long after Brandon “Beaver Cleaver” Roy retires. [Seriously, is there an NBA player more likely to say, “gee, shucks”? I think that's why they didn't trade for Richard Jefferson. An NBA locker room can only sustain a certain number of non-cussing players before what's endearing corrupts the warrior spirit. Those two and Greg Oden would have taken it over the edge.]

The combination of old faithfuls and new fans certainly makes for a great arena experience, a cacophony rivaled only by Oklahoma City and Utah, among the teams I’ve seen on this trek. It’s a significant component of my holding on to my Portland apartment. I’ll certainly never be a Blazer fan—I have a team—but it’s plenty fun to be in the thick of the movement.

Actually, it wasn’t exactly a bar; it was a pizza joint, but it was in a really rough neighborhood in NYC.  Actually it was in Chelsea, catty-corner the Dallas BBQ on 23rd—where all the sh*t goes down.  Actually, most violence in Chelsea involves fighting over cabs, but whatever, it was a pizza joint, and they serve beer, so I think that counts for bar fights.

Anyway, my friend and I were stopping for a few slices before catching a movie up the block.  We had been the only patrons when we’d arrived, but while ordering, a few other guys came in.  It wasn’t a big place, but there was plenty of room for everyone, so there was no reason whatsoever for this one guy to go over to the table my friend and I had chosen, and start to clear our jackets off it.  I said, “Hey, that’s my jacket,” but he ignored me, picked up my nice leather jacket (and my friend’s lesser leather jacket), tossed them toward the bench against the wall (not quite making it) and sat down at our table.  I’m really hard to get to, but that did it, the utterly needless hostility, and I started towards him.

I didn’t really have a plan (I’m not very experienced in such matters) but I was pissed and my jacket was on the floor, so I figured I’d just work it out on the fly.  And I had no f#cking idea what was going on with this guy.  He hadn’t said a word, wasn’t even looking at me; he only acknowledged my presence by rising from the table, fists at his sides.  But just as he started towards me, another guy who had come in behind him called out, “Edward, what do you think you’re doing?”  He went over to the hostile guy, unresponsive, took his arm, and, apologizing to us, led him over to a table by the window, “Come on, sit over here.”  The hostile dude, still silent, sat down and slouched over the table.

His friend picked up our jackets, brushed them off, and put them back on our table. Coming over to us, he apologized again, “I’m sorry, just a rowdy rugger who’s had too much to drink.”  Maybe it was the adrenaline still kicking, but to me it sounded like a, “be careful, you don’t want to mess with a big bad rugby player.”  And I responded stupidly, “Yeah?  I play rugby, too.”  What a dumb thing to say.  It would have been more accurate to say, “Yeah?  I played rugby, too, for two seasons, in a small college; we mostly lost.”  And the way I said it, it might as well have been, “Yeah?  Well I know karate, too.”  But it’s good that I didn’t say that, because that would have been hostile, and he might have responded with hostility.  Instead, he brightened, smiled genuinely, and said I should join their gay rugby league.  He gave it a good quick sales pitch, capped with a description of the biannual gathering, organized by the International Gay Rugby Association & Board, AKA IGRAB. “It’s just eight hundred gay ruggers from all over the world, dancing, and fun, if that’s of any interest to you.”  I said I’d check out the website.

What does this have to do with basketball and my trip across America?  Everything!  Well, maybe not.  I just started writing the title of this entry about my last seven days on the road, “Seven Days of Travel and…” and “eight hundred gay ruggers from all over the world, dancing, and fun,” just popped into my head.  It’s one of the better sentences I’ve heard.  And it’s in there permanently.  So sort of like the way some people automatically (and annoyingly) add “in bed” when reading fortune cookies’ slips of wisdom, or adding “that’s what she said” where appropriate, sometimes “eight hundred gay ruggers, dancing, and fun” just pops into my head.  Someone asks about the party, “So who’s going to be there?  What’s the plan?” and I say, “K’s coworkers, of course, some people from ZogSports, L’s Syracuse people, the little redhead N’s not getting with, but says he is, eight hundred gay ruggers from all over the world, dancing, and fun.”

So yes, this entire post is about something entirely unrelated to basketball, that came to mind while writing a title for another quick blog entry.  This is how I work.