Sur La Mer (our 31st Anniversarty) Part 16: The D River, If You Insist

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Lincoln City geography has this much in common with that of Portland, and it's this: a river divides it and forms the basis for how the numbered streets are determined.

That's where the similarity ends.

Another few words about Lincoln City geography: It's a long, slender city. Along its northeastern side is a body of water called Devil's Lake (attributed to indigenous legend which may or may not have been misremembered by those who displaced those indigenous people ... provided it wasn't made up entirely). At its south end, Devil's Lake turns a point toward the Pacific and, from that point, issues an outlet.

It's about 400-some feet long, and it drains Devil's Lake directly to the ocean. Most of the time, though, it hardly seems much of a stream at all.

This, then, is the "D River", a vast majority of the time anyone crossing the bridge over it on Hwy 101 in the middle of Lincoln City is likely to see it. Prepare to be awed.

It was documented by the Guinness Book of World Records as world's-shortest for a very long time and the State's road signs at the time exalted it as such as it does today.

However, in 1989, Guinness changed that after a group of school children in Great Falls, Montana, had the channel that allows Giant Springs to drain to the Missouri River, having rendered a result of 201 feet. L.C. boosters countered by arguing that the D was 120 feet long at 'extreme high tide', a claim seeming to try too hard even if you love Oregon having the most remarkable of everything (as I do - my Oregon chauvinism is second to nobody's, as anyone who knows me will tell you).

Faced with having to adjudicate between a group of Oregon Coast boosters on one side and Montana schoolchildren on the other, Guinness took the utterly Solomanic approach of fully recusing itself from further authority, never to declare the world's shortest river ever again, and removing the category from their famous compendium altogether. 

While rolling up the court and going home on the Guinness part is something of a downer, it does mean that we can continue to insist it's the world's shortest river, and there isn't a thing anyone can do to contradict us about it.

And the sign still exists at the 101 bridge: D RIVER -- WORLDS SHORTEST.

[OR_liff] Bill Hall Nails The Tao of Tom McCall With McCallandia

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The Wife™ has informed me that seeing local things with the grammatic form -landia appended has become tiresome. I'm beginning to agree. If you see anythinglandia in Portland or the environs these days, it's long since lost its punch.

The upside to this is that when something is given the rubric and deserves it, it wears it so very well. I have just met with such a thing.

Bill Hall is a man of much ilk who has been involved in Oregon politics for a while; he is currently a county commissioner in Lincoln County, down on the coast. As a younger fellow, he volunteered to help elect Oregon's then-quondam governor, Tom McCall, to a hoped-for third non-consecutive term. Old Moe Mentum had swung the other way by then, and it was not to be, but clearly it left the seed of a story that eventually demanded to be told.

Oregon politics and politicos are strange things. At once parochial and world-aware, we tend to have a laser-like focus on the local that tends to obscure the fact that, in the back of our minds, we have a solid idea of how it connects to the world around us. I fancy they are a breed unto themselves. From the late 1960s through the mid 1970s, that breed of human was crystallized into a 6' 5" man from Massachusetts by way of central Oregon who taught us … and is still, by his legacy, teaching us … how to Oregon better than many natives. McCall is a legend in Oregon politics for good, solid reasons, leaving us a legacy of logical, sensible land-use planning and a way of cherishing the environment and our natural treasures that acknowledges that if Oregon's special because of them, Oregon will no longer be special if she sells them out as wealth and plunder.

But he was also a man of seeming contradictions, because as progressive as he was in many important ways, in other ways, he was your standard-issue 1970s Republican. Author Hall has taken the measure of the man, all in all, and given us a romp of a utopian novel in McCallandia, published by Matt Love's Nestucca Spit Press. The book imagines what would have happened if, instead of elevating Gerald Ford to the vice-presidency on Agnew's resignation in 1973, Nixon instead chose The Man From Oregon as an unexpected safe chair-warmer. Of course, Watergate happened after that. And after that … President McCall. And The Oregon Story goes national.

This is, as the tagline in the upper right corner of book has it, a utopian novel, and those who would say that what happened in the book couldn't possibly happen in reality would be well-advised to look up that word and understand what it means. Because a book in which the Bottle Bill and the Beach Bill went national, the President temporarily heads the EPA, Vortex II happens on the National Mall, and Barry Commoner becomes vice president couldn't possibly happen in reality. Being a utopian alternative history, though, allows you to kick out all the stops.

Where this book really clicked for me, though, whas the way Hall made everything work. By his authorial pen, McCall achieves full measure as an Oregonized sort of Lyndon Johnson, who had one foot in tradition and one foot in daring to do the right thing against any and all odds. All the positivity and even the hope for change that McCall represented to many of us was captured utterly. The novel is saturated in all the Oregon you could ever want to read about; no less than James Cloutier contributed a Hugh Wetshoe cartoon as one of the opening gambits.

Hall's McCall fairly strides though the novel, which is set up as a series of episodes interspersed with narratives from other supporting characters and 'what might have been' media pieces. The life of President McCall doesn't deviate from the actual history of the times; "Squeaky" Fromme makes an attempt on his life in Sacramento in 1975, Vic Atiyeh still triumphs over Robert Straub to become Oregon's last GOP governor; McCall still succumbs to cancer in January of 1983. What also impresses is the way Hall weaves the facts of what actually happened with the idea of a McCall presidency and makes it all seem as though, if McCall had actually gotten into the White House, this all might actually have happened.

And any Oregon political novel that has Ken Kesey as a character? That name-checks Callenbach's Ecotopia? Whose roll-call of Oregon political names rings down the Capitol corridors like animating spirits? Whose second chapter is a notional Rolling Stone piece that channels Hunter S. Thompson? How could I not say yes to that?

The book is a wonder and a romp  and a manic bit of fun and as Oregon as it gets and a decided anti-depressant to the current times we're in, and if anyone ever wonders why McCall was revered by Oregonians Of A Certain Age and why he should be even now, you'll find the answers here.

I wholeheartedly recommend that anyone interested in Oregon get a copy of this book. It may well turn out to be one of the best-remembered and cogent books on the Oregon scene ever written.

It certainly nailed the McCall I remember.

[pdx] Two More Reasons To Smile If You're A Portland Liberal Who Likes Print

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Two things that have happened in the last week that should make you smile if you're liberal, a Portlander, into literature, or a liberal Portlander into literature (surprisingly, that's not all of us, campers).

The first thing is that The New Republic, the 102-year-old journal of liberal thought and opinion, is now essentially a Portland immigrant, but its mentor is a good one. Win McCormack, who ran the legendary Oregon Magazine back in the day and currently helms Tin House Press and is one of the greatest literary figures Oregon has produced latterly, bought TNR out of the hell of 'vertically digital integration' that Chris Hughes was moving it into. The Wall Street Journal reports:

When announcing his intention to sell the publication, Mr. Hughes said finding a sustainable business model for the magazine had proven elusive. But he says he believes that Messrs. McCormack and Fish are the right people to lead the publication forward.
“I had many conversations with qualified candidates, and of those I ultimately concluded that Win McCormack and Ham Fish are those stewards. Their backgrounds in journalism and progressive politics make them uniquely qualified to lead such a historic institution,” he said in a statement.

When you're looking to give a liberal magazine a proper home, going with an actual liberal is always the best way, I think it's axiomatic to say.

The other notable thing that should make every good liberal happy is that the Oregon Center for Public Policy is moving its office to the center of the big-time. I like saying that the OCPP are the policy geeks The Oregonian thinks they're talking to when they talk to the Cascade Policy Institute. That is to say, when Soylent News™ goes for some reasonable political voice, they think they've found it in CPI but, as usual, they're wrong about that.

This can only be good news for the OCPP, as Chuck Sheketoff's voice has been gaining much strength around here and of the two big voices, OCPP is much much more on the side of working Oregonians of all types and those of us who think we're a community rather than those of us who see the Oregon economy as some sort of Thunderdome.

And if you'd like to work for OCPP and have the mad office skills, there's a position for Office Manager open: http://www.ocpp.org/2016/03/03/2016-office-manager/

[pdx] KOPB Open House, Complete With Celebrity Sightings!!!

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I am a kid of the TV generation. This is true, and relevant.

I was born in Silverton, Oregon and spent a lot of time watching the boob tube. It would not be wholly incorrect to say that the TV signals not only sent me news, information, fun, and a ton of daytime game shows, but also kind of pulled me north from my ancestral home. TV has always had a sort of magic … strange action at a distance, that made a kid on the country-fied margin of a mid-Willamette Valley town feel like he was just another Portlander.

Newscasters were amongst my first idols. Ivan Smith, Rick Meyers, Ted Bryant, Jim Bosley, Mike Donahue … if you grew up in Oregon during the 70s, you knew these names too.

Our granfallon, but not a bad thing.

So, now that I've been a resident of Portland for more than fifty percent of my life now, it seems a bit strange that the idea of a visit to a TV station would still excite me. As Oregonians go, I'm pretty jaded about some things. But when The Wife™ told me that we could hit KOPB TV during an open house, there was no question about whether or not I was going to be there.

So, we hit Clackamas Town Center for watch batteries; I must not enter a TV station in Portland, it ought be written, without my Tom Peterson Watch strapped on. A totem, if you will. The building and equipment will at once note this, and accept me as one of their own. Or, at least, an elucidating conversation shall ensue.

KOPB's main studio, where all the TV magic pertains, is a building along SW Macadam Avenue in the southern reaches of Portland's Johns Landing area, that flat area between the river and the hills south of the South Waterfront Condo Newtown, where the addresses on the cross-streets begin with the number 0. KOPB's building is located in the space-post continuum at 7140 SW Macadam Avenue; the entry is on the west side of the street and is at the cross of SW Nevada Street. Let there be no mistake, though, despite there being a parking lot at the studio building, there was to be no chance of getting a space there; Oregon Public Broadcasting is that popular. We parked about two blocks north on a side street, which gave for a nice little walk, which is no mean thing, as the Johns Landing nabe is almost too cute for adequate description.

Balloons, pop up tents, free swag just for showing up … we got two great Oregon Field Guide DVDs and an Oregon Experience about the nation's first female cop, who happened here in Portland, and met two very famous celebrities. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We are about to enter the TV zone, and signs and wonders are to start portending all over the place. Please, step inside the doors …

Just inside the doors and behind the wonderful architecture of the reception desk is a lobby with history. Wonderful stuff. Before digital TV and remote-control cameras, this is the way they did it back in the day …

KOAC was one of the two original stations in the OPB network. That was the one in Corvallis: KOAP was the Portland half. And, before there was .MP4 files and digital audio, this is how you rocked it on remote:

During the 80s, the OPB Network expanded with the addition of KVDO, Salem's former independent Channel 3, which was eventually moved to Bend, and the 13 was the LaGrande channel, nailing down NE Oregon and providing OPB with, if not world domination, overwhelming command of the state of Oregon.

OPB world domination is scheduled sometime in the future perhaps. I can think of worse things.

The classic symbol of broadcasting seems to be the microphone, and here are some classics from OPB's history, complete with call-signs:

Sadly, not too much paper ephemera, though I found this matchbook cover cosmically hilarious …

Wise eyes may have watched Channel 10. Wise mouths have moved on from the cigarette. Of course, wise mouths will always be with us, won't they?

Moving along past an even older version of portable camera than before …

… there come the radio studios. On the right as you proceed down the hall, there's the KOPB radio studio, on the air with the Saturday edition of Think Out Loud. 

The crown jewel of the building, the TV production studio, is at the south end of the building. The entry level turns out to be upstairs, and at the end of the corridor is a overlook to the studio floor. Oregon Art Beat was taping a performance of the U of O's women's a capella group, Divisi. 

The studio level was downstairs. A classic view beside the door:

Despite the notes of classic broadcasting history one can see everywhere, make no mistake, OPB is thoroughly, almost disconcertingly modern.  Stepping into the master control center was a little like stepping into the bridge of the J.J. Abrams version of the bridge of the USS Enterprise. 
 

Guided through by a technician who knew just everything about everything, he told us all the steps required to get shows out of the aether and on the are. It's computers, of course, all the way down; the only physical tape storage was the archives, which seem to be a large cabinet resembling a vending machine and about the size of two very large refrigerators. They contain tapes holding about 1 TB each; requests make their way to the system, which extracts the files from tape and places them on the server for later broadcast. It's a world of digital transmission and computer files there, and it's very quiet and efficient with beautiful lights and test patterns.

Not for the first time, I realized that I had missed one of those various callings I just wasn't clever enough to get into. Video transmission kind of does it to me. being in this room, knowing that the programs seen on the small monitors are instantly going to every corner of the state that has a computer or a TV, there's an amazing feeling of having one's finger on the pulse of modern times. The tech guide opined that it was never too late to start, but I wonder. The idea of that ship having sailed is a hard one to divorce from.

At this time, the information being dished out to Oregonians was dispensed through the minor gods of Christopher Kimball and Lidia Bastianich. Suitably, for Portland, it was cooking shows.

I always thought it was strange. All those shows about cooking, not one about washing up. Anyway.

All is not digital there, not yet … as long as there is analog legacy media, they'll need to convert, and that's one of the jobs this lumbering artoo unit does :

There were still video tape decks and legacy technology, but it was chiefly devoted to the conversion of analog technology to digital as needed. It's not dead, but it is fading away.

Back upstairs and toward the exit to the building, across the corridor from the KOPB radio studio was the one for the local legendary listener-supported jazz station, KMHD-FM.

KMHD is a uniquely local thing. Housed at the campus of Mount Hood Community College until about 2008, it's been broadcasting jazz, commercial-free, to Portlandia and surrounds for between thirty and forty years. It's never been a part of the Mount Hood CC curriculum, but MHCC does own the station; from 2009 OPB has been running it in partnership with MHCC, which is the license holder and station owner.

So for those of you who love listening to KMHD, there's the magic happening, right in front of you.

So much broadcasting in such a small space, so close to each other. This never ceases to amaze me. Broadcasting is magic, kinda.

Back out to the sun/rain/sun, we stopped again to chat with our celebrities. I present to you Steve Amen and Eric Cain, and if you don't know these names, you should. If there was an Oregon citizenship test, they'd be on it.

Steve Amen (l), Eric Cain (r). Local broadcast gods.

Steve Amen, of course, is the affable face of the legendary Oregon Field Guide. Eric Cain produced the equally-legendary Oregon Exprerience series. If it's Oregon, the history,  the culture, the important faces in Oregon history, the geography, travel, those two programs very nearly have it covered. They're passionate about Oregon, this special place and we have nothing but admiration for their creative energies, every one of which counts large.

They are also incredibly friendly guys who it's terribly easy to fall into a deep chat about the subjects they cover. I recently saw the Oregon Experience about Ken Kesey, an author whose works I've never read but a man whose life is utterly fascinating, and was immensely pleased to hear Eric talk about it.

If you never heard of the awesomeness these guys produce (not to mention the third member of the triumvirate, Oregon Art Beat) then it's time to bone up, cowboys. A lot of past OFGs are available for viewing any time at http://www.opb.org/programs/ofg/; similarly for Oregon Experience the site is http://www.opb.org/television/programs/oregonexperience/. For history both natural and human nothing else can compare, in the video stream, and for those who wish to properly know how to Oregon, which is a lifelong study even for us natives, it's continuing education.

It's free to all, whether or not you can contribute. At least we should be grateful to have it. 

We have history. But broadcasting? No mystery.