Trip last week up to Washington was super fantabulous…

Washington Coast on Olympic Peninsula.

Sunflower in my yard is nearing 12 feet and it hasn’t even opened up yet… :0

A mile high in Denver town…

Cowboy/Native.

The very cool Denver Art Museum.

The Capital.

Looking West from the Capital steps.

Eddy exactly one mile high.

Some pics from the hood…

I’m loving some of the new murals popping up around NE.

On N. Williams I believe…

In front of my bus stop on the #9…

My garden…

Near work…

Back home in Illinois

The mighty Mississippi in Illinois. A lot of memories along this road. 

River town lunch 

Frog legs… 

Coffee in the Midwest. (More pics below)

Writing and junk and stuff…

What I’ve been working on lately. 

Started my first weekly column with Change.org. Bookmark it, yo… 

Wrote a piece on addiction that has drummed up lots of interest. And still may. 

And a piece on the most kick ass resource site ever. 

And a news story on Dignity Village today.

Is your bell banging loudly?

Oh Nebraska…

My lifelong friend Jason Myers lives in a little town of oh, about 400 people outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. Both John Nasello (we all grew up together) and I traveled east for a long overdue weekend to see Jason and his family. We had lots and lots of fun and we came back alive. Perfect. 

I made the team. (Heisman Trophy winners at the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame.) 

How come Street Roots isn’t mentioned in books about Portland?

I was walking past the Portland/Oregon section in Powell’s Books today – if you’re a Portlander you know the section. Not one of us has not purchased or thought about purchasing one of those books about Portland for someone stuck in some god awful place they wish they would have left long ago. 

There’s so many books to choose from. And you know what – of the umpteen books about Portland and it’s culture, not one of them mentions Street Roots. 

How can one put out a book called Zinester’s Guide to Portland and not mention Street Roots? Worse, Portland’s Red Guide, a book about Portland’s radical past and present, nothing. Secret Portland? Nope. Portland for Dummies? Forget about it. I haven’t read Fugitives and Refugees, which Street Roots has both of, but I’m sure Chuck Palahniuk forgot to mention us or something, something. Fucker. 

I’m telling all my friends to move to Seattle anyway… so there.

Ten years of Street Roots

A story I wrote on Street Roots turning ten! And I managed not to mention myself once. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s 8:30 on a Thursday morning, and the monthly vendor meeting is about to begin. People have been mulling about for more than a half an hour – drinking coffee, eating pastries and talking sales techniques and sports.

Nearly 40 people gather around. They are eager to talk about the increase in vendors and how it’s effecting vendor locations throughout the city. In the past month, the number of individuals walking through the Street Roots door and selling the newspaper has increased dramatically. New faces and old assemble around the Street Roots table like a campfire on a chilly night. It’s the same table where, more than a decade ago, five vendors and a few volunteers gathered around to plan the first edition of Street Roots.