Tons of people came to Portland after, during and just before the Kurt Cobain thing. There were artists here before that of course, but early 90s saw a general inundation. It's good and bad when you have to live with it, but artists basically go into art knowing they are going to be poor. In fact, if you're not poor the whole myth doesn't work, if and when you finally arrive as a great writer, musician, etc.

The funny thing about this article is that I could close my eyes and throw a rock and I'd bet you my little left toe that the person hit by the rock will be able to discourse at length about how to survive with no money. As I got into my 30s I realized that this artist/survival ethic extended itself to young families with kids just as much as it did to the single, 22 yo male with nothing to lose.

Having spent more than my fair share of time in the heart of the city, living that life I can tell you that there is something to be said for creativity and ingenuity. But also there's something unmentioned in this article and it's your peers. In Portland one of the main things that allows a no-account, little shit musician to get drunk and laid three nights a week while living off of craigslist gigs is the fact that everybody does this exact same thing. Thus there is no peer guilt, or at least it's highly mitigated by the crowd.

For example, just off the top of my head (and I'm a few years out from the cutting edge of urban survival):

-smokes...go to the tobacco store, buy rolling tobacco in bulk. currently 5.50 an ounce of good shag

-brew your own beer or go in with somebody who has the equipment, pay for the ingredients. or just buy at the store and avoid the bar altogether. last time i did it, worked out to 30 cents a bottle including the price of the bottle for some high grade double hopped belgian beer

-trader joes (local grocery), kettleman's bagels, etc, etc, all toss their food in the dumpster and it's basically perfect. in fact, the employees inside know that if they take care to keep the toss away shit in good shape their store will be respected, even appreciated. a conservative estimate would say at least 200 places do this. huge bags of bagels are a dollar, three bags for two dollars. frozen dumpster food if you get it quick is still fuckin frozen and in perfect condition.

-for shelter you rent a fucking room. and yes i know very well adjusted families with kids who do this by simply renting two rooms in the same house. this has been going for close to two decades, that i've seen.

-food stamps, unemployment, craigslist gigs, day labor and barter systems are ubiquitous to portland. there would in fact be no portland as we know it without these institutions.....so yeah it's going to turn to shit like everyone else but....

-a huge amount of people are constantly running around trying to make co-ops and urban farms and every other fucking thing to make the best of shit, eventually this has forced the monied class to live with the reality of the rest of us. the cops do still shoot people on a regular basis, but i know from first hand experience that if they come to your dumpy little co-housing situation and you treat them with respect they will be totally reasonable (i've seen this w/ blacks, whites, whatever). and this happens specifically because the city shits their pants as a collective whenever something oppressive happens. sure it still happens, but it's better than just rolling over and accepting a foot in your ass.

-the point to all this is not to say that portland is better, though it probably is, but rather to point out that the whole reality of portland and other similar cities comes from the fact that starving artists basically paved the way for how to get it done.

I would submit that most 'artists' are actually just narcissistic assholes in pupa form, however IF they do in fact live by the creative ethos then there might in fact be something survival-worthy in regards to a general sense of creativity.

M.C. Hammer, for those who missed his brief act, was a late-80s- early-90s rap star most famous for squandering a huge fortune. “Hammer” had amassed a booty of some $33 million at peak popularity thanks to a few hit songs and some catchy dance moves. With or without the advice of his manager, the rap star dumped $12 of that million into a Californian mega-mansion, complete with two gold- plated "Hammer Time" gates at the entrance to the property and a 17- car garage, which he filled with luxury vehicles. Not one to shy away from his own reflection, Hammer had $75,000 worth of mirrors installed throughout the house. A couple of helicopters were on standby out back in case Hammer needed to be anywhere faster than his Lamborghinis could take him.

Alas, as we all know, “Hammer Time” can’t last forever. And, after his entourage of 300 helped the poor rapper blow his loot, Hammer filed for bankruptcy and spent the final years of the millennium as a comical footnote in the book of one-hit wonders.

- Joel Bowman

"Arms races are inherently negative-sum games; the only winning party is the guy who is selling the weapons."

- Karl Denninger

I wasn't good as Mike Tyson, but as Joe Frazier, I kicked ass.

- Mike Tyson when asked by interviewer how well he played "Fight Night Round 4" video game

I have never seen in over 12 years of Police work any attacker threaten another in silence.

- Paul Genge

" I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

-Stephen Roberts

Another of my friends went thru what he calls conceptual therapy and as a biomedical tech in a hospital he was called in on a new sterilizer that had hiccupped as soon as he was there this female supervisor ranted up one side and down another about him, the machine, her day, ad nauseum.

When she stopped he asked "What part of that is going to help me fix this machine?"

-ME forum

When the time comes when we do look back to understand what went wrong, I think we'll see that the Woodstock generation went off the rails in 1980, with the election of the actor, Ronald Reagan, who really established the idea that a society could benefit hugely just by lying to itself, or simply pretending. It wasn't "morning in America," of course. It was more like eleven-thirty at night, and the rest of the world had eaten our breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and we decided that inflating our national self-esteem was more important than paying attention to reality. That was when we became a something-for-nothing society -- and, incidentally, it was also the take-off point for legalized gambling all over America (an "industry" based on the worship of unearned riches). And that was, coincidentally, the moment when we became a nation of dupes, grifters, marks, and suckers.

- J H Kunstler

In late 1988, Tyson fired longtime trainer Kevin Rooney, the man many credit for honing Tyson's craft after the death of D'Amato. Without Rooney, Tyson's skills quickly deteriorated and he became more prone to looking for the one-punch knockout, rather than using the combinations that brought him to stardom. He also began to head-hunt, neglecting to attack the opponent's body first. In addition, he lost his defensive skills and began to barrel straight in toward the opponent, neglecting to jab and slip his way in.

- Wiki

Develop strong transverse power

Develop strong transverse power

It will help you land solid hooks and upper-cuts. When I take on taller guys, I cover up instead of jabbing to get inside, but once inside I wait for one of his hooks (since he can't throw straight shots) and then counter punch. My power range is right on and i am still too close for him to hit with any power. I do this for mma, but it still works really good for boxing, too. Twisting crunches, etc. Transverse power is all in the twist.

Nobody wants to hear what the plumber has to say til the shit backs up in the living room.

- Susanne Trimbath

"... Not saying don't do it, am saying make damn sure you know who is going to be in the blast radius when you pull the pin on this grenade."

- internet

"Only in america you can be born a poor black man and die a rich white woman."

- on the net

Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more numerous formerly than they are today; for they love peace and quiet and good tilled earth: a well-ordered and well-farmed countryside was their favourite haunt. They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom, though they were skilful with tools.

- Tolkien

“I saved nothing for the way back”.
- from Gattaca

Buyer needs to be better than aware, buyer needs to stay away.

- Real Servant

I might state the "monkey fairness" heuristic as "I deserve at least
as much as X Y and Z do". In the real world, on average, X Y or Z
will just by natural processes seem to be more advantaged in the
narrow way being considered. And X Y and Z use the same strategy, and
may be looking at different aspects of advantage. This provides a
rationale for permanent ratcheting up. The distributions that natural
systems generate are considered unfair by capuchins and humans, which
leads to being pissed off at the world and others a lot of the time.

-dj

Are you not willing to be sponged out, erased, canceled, nothing? If not, you will never really change.

D.H. Lawrence

I've said it before but will say it again... Britain will be the next Nazi Germany. I've read a lot on Weimar Germany and I see all the parallels around me every day. It is deeply broken country in almost every way, rotten to the core. It will soon implode and lash out at anyone it can... we'll probably start WW3. You heard it here first...

J. Jones

I haven't rubbed shoulders with the elite in a long while, but
among the small investors and business people I talk with, my impression is that these folks are strongly addicted to the dopamine rush they get when they buy and sell. The rampant hysteria over Obama's bailouts/social medicine/gun- ban is a fear of an encroaching socialism that will cut them off from their drug/addiction that the last administration affirmed. You just can't get the same hit with that socialistic- methadone gack they're pushing over at Obama's free clinic.

Anyway, the market-dopers/ elite will take us to the wall with their capitalist-market- crack, then, when it can't be sustained any longer, in an act of addictive transference, they will dump free markets smack for war. Like a junkie pushing the spike in for one last glorious hit, they will launch the missiles. The orgy of our free markets will be maintained by, or even, superseded by, the ultimate rush that is the orgy of war. War is the ultimate dopamine rush, and the only logical progression/ alternative to a free market crack addition.

Everybody else gets to go along with the resulting misery, just like the codependents in the home of an alcoholic/addict.

All the talk about sustainable this or that is just so much denial that prevents us from facing the truth about our free-market addiction. The elites seize upon and affirm with each other the socially acceptable lies and flimsy rationalizations (carbon-credits/ offsets, hydrogen economy, hybrid cars, etc.) that support their destructive behavior and help drag their codependents (you and me) along with them down the shit hole.

Hamlet