Media Stalker : Exotic Magazine Online : October 2002

I READ AN INTERESTING ITEM on the last page of the Portland Tribune the other day in a feature on anarchist leader John Zerzan's favorite recipes. I wasn't aware you can substitute almonds for walnuts in Tollhouse cookies. Then again, I'm not an anarchist!

I said before that I've never read Portland Mercury editor Wm. Steven Humphrey but somehow knew he'd be wacky.

I've since read a feature story on him in the Portland Tribune's A&E-like Friday insert, only at Goad's urging. I want to write a column about Portland media while avoiding Portland and its media as much as possible.

Sure enough, we begin by learning that when Wm. Steven etc. is asked if he's "got a minute," he sets a one-minute timer on his desk.

Per one Mercury "arts editrix" (wacky!) Julianne Shepherd, who's, like: "At the end of the minute, he's, like, 'Now get out of my office!'"

Let's just move on. Let's not let that stop us from having a good time.

Willamette Week editor Mark Zusman, always a barrel of laughs, weighs in as well: "I like the Mercury; I like how they don't take anything seriously."

That lovable loon! STOP it, Zusman! You're killing us!

The Portland Mercury takes themselves more seriously than a heart attack, and there's such goodwill and camaraderie among this lot that Willamette Week tried to secure the rights to their name out from under them when they heard they were coming to town.

Alternative. Liberal. Progressive. Call them what you will, they're the most easily threatened people on the planet.

Lookit: Wm. etc. etc. is probably a perfectly nice guy, but he's not funny, he's not interesting, and he's certainly not a cover-story-worthy subject for any paper not trying to sell us a bill of goods.

What the hell is a feature story on the painstakingly "alternative" editor of some narrowly focused, hoity-toity, cutesy-wootsy Northwest Portland publication doing in a paper being shoved down the throats of the general public?

The only comment I've heard regarding the Portland Tribune out here in
East County is: "Who keeps throwing this in
my driveway?"

Honey? Today's Trib takes an in-depth look at the editor of the Portland Mercury!

"Super! Doesn't the Mercury endorse Tre Arrow
for governor?"

The Portland Tribune consists entirely of Portland relics with careers that say no one wants to read them (let alone pay to), listen to them on the radio, watch them on TV, etc.

Meet "the press."

The Tribune was started by the second-richest person in Oregon, whose heirs are undoubtedly scrambling as we speak to have him declared incompetent.

How much is he spending so we can learn that Phil Stanford knows Matt Groening? People are starving somewhere.

While people no one cares about are promoting people only they care about in his paper, the zillionaire is having a stream diverted into the
nineteen-acre hole he's had dug on his desert property so he can have ducks.

It's got nothing to do with us. Forget the man on the street unless he's on upscale Northwest 23rd where the oh-so-alternative Portland Mercury resides. We're just advertising marks.

Meanwhile, those of us at filthy little Exotic are the only ones here in the remote outback working for a real, proven writer with success beyond this glorified logging camp [meaning, of course, J. L. Stockman --Ed.] as opposed to
certain ancient, supposedly
"alternative" local fixtures who manufactured their "careers" in "journalism" by dint of being born to wealthy, prominent families
and who shall remain nameless (Jim Redden, Mark Zusman, Richard Meeker).

We're the only ones doing anything remotely "alternative," remotely rock 'n' roll.

We're the true desolation angels here, sensitive to the plight of the thrashing doves and some of us having learned firsthand the meaning of the words: "Freedom of speech--just watch what you say." (Ice-T)

And, for the record, all of us at Exotic have either paid our debts to society or are currently fulfilling our work-release obligations.

Unless you have a job where you don't have to stand on any track record or favorable response to what you do and can still get paid, don't support any of those ever-sniffing,
disapproving papers.

And don't patronize any Portland establishments except for El Loco Burrito. And keep your radios tuned to the Chicano station at 1230 AM where you can hear things like the Archies' "Sugar Sugar," only in Spanish.

That's after Howard Stern goes off the air each morning on KUFO at 101.1 FM. Avoid the Portland reflected by its "media" at all costs. Believe me, that's how they feel about your working-stiff, stripper-ogling, Exotic-reading ass.

re: The Bush visit melée. The cops even pepper-sprayed the press? The press was merely hoping to get some great footage of them pepper-spraying everyone else!

re: Oregon City. Something tells me that being the children of pompous pedants is probably no picnic, either.

The "press" can suck The Media Stalker's fucking dick.