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0048 - The Account, Pt. 7, penultimate (Patreon)

Published:
2024-01-26 18:00:08
Edited:
2024-01-28 00:21:24
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

If anyone would like to move to Portland, I am selling my house pretty soon. I know this is a long shot, as the rest of the nation seems to see Portland as the place where the four horsemen curry and ginger their mounts for the long slog east and downward, but what do I know. 

This brings us to this week's Reader Question! What is your impression of Portland, Oregon? Living in Portland does not excuse you from answering. Sound off below! 

(I am not moving out of Portland. In fact, I am only moving a few blocks away, so if you are nice we could be neighbors!) 

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Comments

Jay Y

As an adjacent Seattle-ite, my impressions are that we pretend to rivalry but have more alike than we do with our other neighbors. Seattle could also stand to have been kept weird but hopefully Bezos' flight from the capital gains tax will normalize shit a bit without making it a ghost town of soulless buildings.

Cy Heffley

i hear portland has good donuts and weather

Melanie

A city and community that doesn't understand how it actually is. Like an oversized college town where the townies and students are one.

Zen Window

goddamnit as soon as i saw that toolbags face i was worried hed even infected my beloved achewood but i shouldnt have worried this is a perfect use of t

Josh Egbert

I mean... this is T we're talking about. This won't go right.

Phase Raccoon

My impression is that it is a very fashionable place to live, full of progressive people, but that it is experiencing many of the same issues experienced by cities who are swelling - social service problems that they are not equipped to handle. This has led to negative press. But I also believe because it has been perceived as a Mecca of progressive politics, any sign of "urban decay" will be jumped upon by right wing media. So, I take the negative rumor and fearmongering with the grain of salt it deserves.

Rand Brittain

Aside from "it's a city, which means you have a lot of shops and restaurants that you can't get in places that are not cities", I mostly remember Portland as the place where the panhandlers wear Naruto headbands and have signs saying FUCK TRUMP, whereas in the South they would say HOMELESS VET PLEASE HELP GOD BLESS. (Presumably this is the same sentence translated into a different cultural context.)

John

I have never been to the pacific northwest and don't know when I'll get to go so Portland remains a mystery and/or the setting of that comedy TV show that one time.

Shawn Warren

I don't know why Musk feels the need to outsource this, he seems to be handling it on his own just fine

Lynsey McCoskey

We are also looking to move within Portland but we are not "mortgage/down payment" style yet so best case scenario, we are looking to become Teodor getting a letter about paying rent and masturbating less loudly. Good luck on the move!

Ryan Boyle

Hi from Chicago, where we understand how negative stereotypes do not match the lived experience of our residents. Portland looks very cool, and I'm sure it's a fine place to live.

Jay Y

I'm also curious about your local politics; do you too keep electing cop-adjacent people to be mayor because they're a demographic minority so maybe it will work out okay this time? Do billionaires pour money into local elections when they don't even live in the city because NIMBYs know no bounds?

Linus Lee

Love Portland. Always a good time. Friendly people. Good foods. People paint their houses weird. Close to outside things. Only city I've been to that has made me consider leaving Chicago.

Julie (HiDeeHoGal)

The dream of the 90s has not been alive in Portland for quite a while now. And next to the word "hapless" in the dictionary there is a picture of Teodor.

fancymatt

I grew up in the Boise area and we always looked at Portland as the cultural hotspot that we aspired to be like. Trips to Portland were constantly being organized during high school and college under the assumption that Portland was where you go for a cool time. I still like the ethos of Portland, and the things that are considered stereotypically “Portland” (as portrayed in Portlandia) are generally benign or desireable things to me. There are many cities out there which have a much worse stereotype about them. Despite this, when I’ve visited recently it was feeling a little more sketchy, a little more downtrodden than it was in my memory. Maybe some of the civic pride is gone or maybe it’s facing problems that it’s incapable of solving by itself. Obviously things like homelessness are very complex. I’m not trying to diagnose or condemn, only to say that it no longer seems like a place I’d like to move to and many of my friends have moved out of there recently. But I’m sure it depends greatly on where you are in the city.

Cf Duddy

This is too good. “Loser make choices fast, Teodor” 😂😂😂

Oppido

This feels like someone's pranking T, as the real Elon would have found a way to endorse Great Replacement theory within the opening seconds.

Omurice

I have nothing but respect for Portland but rural Oregon is another thing entirely. It’s hard to believe it’s been eight years since the takeover at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, but the white supremacy movement is still there.

Lynsey McCoskey

PS: My impression of Portland after living here for 8 years is: Not nearly as shitty as most right-wing media would have you believe. Comes with a host of its own problems and idiosyncrasies, but not more than most other places. Often wet and getting hotter each summer, again, that applies to most other places. Every time I hit a pothole, I yell GODDAMNIT

Ian Macleod

I miss it. I lived there for 12 years, but moved to the Twin Cities in the pandemic. Still think wistfully of Kachka, Kenny & Zukes (RIP), and when I could occasionally afford Nodoguro. Also of the time I did a tight five at a restaurant questioning Fred Armisen’s life choices only to discover he was sitting three feet away.

@misterjayem

There's now a Portland in Oregon??

RBM

My uninformed impression of Portland is that it’s a pretty normal place with pretty normal issues which is being demonized by the far right.

Phineas X. Jones

I like Portland. Last time I was there I got to pet some goats. If a city has goat availability it must be doing something right.

Minda H

Portland is about the same as my little lib college town but warmer and more of a donut scene

fool

As a 16-year Portland resident, moving from Austin TX (aka the Portland of the south), I (still) have hope for our future being great, despite whatever ridiculousness occurs in the national political scene and however much we may be vilified in the media. Good luck with the home sale; I know it's been a hard market.

Brody

I've only been a couple times, but in my experience it's always raining or low grey cloud cover, MOSS grows on the CARS (?!?), and the coffee is fantastic. Bookshops too. And a unionized strip club, hell yeah. My little brother lives around there somewhere but I haven't seen him in years as he joined some religious cult and isn't allowed to cut his beard or whatever.

Alexander Basek

People think Portland is like the Fred Meyer on Interstate, but it's really more like the New Seasons on Interstate.

Nicholas Williams

Portland is a place where I could see myself living, where I would walk my slicker-clad children along dripping forest paths and then visit one of the many decent restaurants near my house for a bowl of curry mussels and serviceable fries. Several people would overdose on my front stoop daily, and for some reason the strip clubs serve good food and are open during lunch. It is always raining, even when it is sunny.

Bungus Bronbo

Teodor's ears actually went limp. I'd need to double check but I think that's a first. That's the saddest thing.

Jenn

THE LAST LOSER 💀

b.zap

It's a Fuck You Friday, and Teodor likes it

Allie

I go to a school elsewhere in Oregon, and it's crazy how many students have transferred to my school from portland colleges because of being robbed by people or exposed to horrible things due to the fentanyl/homeless crisis there. I'm an out of state student, so I haven't spent much time in Portland, but from descriptions of students who've grown up there, it's really not a nice place to live right now. Some great food though!

John Robinson

I visited Portland for four days in June 2011. I found it an entirely pleasant place to be, and if circumstances allowed, I would strongly consider moving there. Alas, my circumstances have Circumstances, and such a move is not in the cards for the foreseeable future.

John Robinson

Wouldn't mind making another visit, though.

Brendan J

My impression of Portland is that you should have bought my house in Portland when I sold it in October!!! I hope your house sale goes well though.

Matt Mitchell

I live in Brooklyn and like it, so I like Portland. I have been there often on tours (I play piano).

Ben Wilinofsky

My impression of Portland is that I hope that steak joint is alive and kicking when I come back and while I am not a strip club aficionado, the fact that our lives can still be bettered by something called Tavern Law is the sort of charming whimsy that makes Portland great

zaratustra

even Teodor's fantasy sequences are sad

Eric Boesch

Portland remains the undisputed ground zero of the recent murder surge, with the worst percentage increase for any large city (discounting noise effects from small numbers) in the past 40 years, nearly tripling its long-time average before receding a bit in 2023. I'm rooting on you to get it back together at least partway (you can't entirely reverse that kind of damage in a few years), but voting for people who pretend their reforms turned out just fine is not how you get there. Ordinary libs are fine, and I don't deny that that kind of attitude is what helped make Portland Portland to start with. But don't expect good government from people whose opinion on violent revolution or goofy ideas like police abolition are equivocal.

sphrog

fuck the police and fuck you, friday

Daniel

I lived on Cap Hill in Seattle for a while so I've met some characters, but by far the strangest people I've ever met are from Portland

GruntyGinMan

Violent crime, to include homicides, has been on a downward trend since the mid 90s. There was a bit of a surge starting in 2020, but there's a consensus it has resumed a downward trend in big cities.

Sedric and Charlie

I know someone who lives in Portland That is the entirety of my opinion on Portland, Oregon

James Cash

Once again, T has failed to ask “how much, exactly”; I look forward to him realizing his subsidy is $69/year because Elon thought it would be funny

Elyse Renée

My impression of Portland is that it’s a dirty port city full of freaks (affectionate) but too consistently rainy for me to consider it in the running for a home base.

mdb

my impression of portland has not changed from the ‘00-10s portrayal of portland as hipster mecca, mostly because i have not really heard anything about portland since that time. my therapist just moved there this fall and his apartment is substandard and full of mold, but that has also been my experience in nashville so i do not hold it against portland. he seems happy so i imagine it is nice enough.

mdb

more people should be mean to fred armisen within his earshot imho

Sightline

Looks like Teodor finally got to the end of "endlessly refreshing your email waiting for the one email that will miraculously change your life" (Sorry I can't find the strip, I think this was the alt-text)

Benzy

I live in Portland, and my impression is that it's a childless adult's paradise, as long as that adult has money. Been here 10 years, moved to the far Eastside to afford a house. Now I work from home, walk my dog and help my kids with homework, only bothering with the central city when hosting guests, or for special events like the light festival.

Benzy

Lol I was coming here to write "Deus Ex Muskina" but yours might be better

Eric Boesch

US 2023 murder rates are estimated to roughly equal 2000 rates. That's a 20 year drop 1994-2014 followed by big jumps. Some other violent crime rates have continued to drop, but if the rate plunge 19940-2000 still counts as current events after 24 years of no net change, then I suggest avoiding the World Trade Center. "Some of these jail terms seem excessive, and why are we jailing people for smoking pot anyway?" was in vogue for years up to 2014 while murder rates and incarceration rates both declined. That's because those were reasonable questions. Then "The criminal justice system serves no useful purpose and the murder rate decline is entirely unrelated to enforcement, so we can just screw with all aspects and the decline will just continue" became a news fad in 2014, and entirely coincidentally, 2015, 2016, and 2020 brought the steepest murder rate percentage increases since the seventies. This is the difference between reform and divestment/defund/abolition/whatever the next hot new name for a bad old idea will be.

Clench and Cheese

I lived in Portland from 1993 to 2005 and will always love the city that was before the California real estate bubble trapped everyone in their houses forever and turned all the parks into refugee camps that sell fentanyl. The Pearl District was not called that, it was the warehouse district. I lived in the loft that now houses Masu Sushi for five years and hosted the Uberhaus Last Thursday party for a couple years. I had comics in PDXS, Snipehunt, and the Rocket, tended bar at Kells and Cassidy's, sold liquor for the Nels Hinton Brokerage and thus saw almost all of central Oregon from my car. I loved the city so much. I thought I missed it, but what I really miss is being in my thirties and having everything ahead of me. As far as today's comic, I really really fucking hate Elon Musk. It's like watching a strip featuring Hitler or Stalin, except trendy. I am probably in the minority here (after all I did a series of strips where my characters broke a cryogenically frozen Walt Disney out of his chamber only to find out he was a psychotic warmonger) but I don't like this storyline too much.

Mat

I know someone who lives near Portland and owns both a dog and several alpacas. He has stated that purchasing food for both the dog and alpacas is a simple process locally. He is an honest man (aside from his penchant for adding items from your rack to his own harness) and therefore I feel this recommendation is trustworthy.

Eli Parker

I think Portland is a place that has a lot of craft beer and no hope of landing a Major League Baseball team. I saw like one episode of Portlandia and didn't find it very funny, and I think the main reason it didn't resonate with me is that I don't feel any contempt for harmless annoying people with silly hobbies.

souvlaki Alabama

My ex partner and I went there for half a day sometime in late 2018. We ate at some restaurant across from Bollywood Theater. There was a street fair. We walked around- it was cold and people were singing outside. From that half day 5 years ago, Portland seemed great.

Oppido

My main impression of Portland is that it's very clear Matt Groening used it as a template and visual reference for Springfield -- I got that sense within the first hour of my first visit, not just from the streets named Quimby and Lovejoy and Flanders but from the look of the houses, the downtown, the trees and foliage, etc. It's a little hard to put a finger on, but I've never gotten a vibe of "oh, this is where Springfield came from" about any other place I've been to.

Oppido

My other main impression of Portland is that every time I go, I buy so much shit at Powell's that I have to pay an extra surcharge on the flight home because my luggage has become so much heavier.

CB

Best record stores in the US

Patrick Gavin

The rule of thumb is- if you live in Humboldt County and you visit Portland, you will move there. Airport layovers and drive-throughs don't count.

Michael Ryan

never been there. looks very dreary and old. like they found a way to transport ohio to the west coast somehow. maybe carmen sandiego did this

DocHaus

I enjoyed going there for a wedding and touring the city on foot. I did not enjoy the 80F weather from runaway climate change and the COVID I got just before the plane ride back.

Distant Egg Song

I've generally gotten massively contrasting reports about Portland. There are people I've listened to who loved it and said it was their favorite place to live, but I've also heard "Basically Seattle, but smells like urine." I've never really gathered enough intel to make up my own opinion.

Duncan

T's ears 😭

Travis Pulley

Portland is where a bmw was suspsiciously left on the road for a long while, and someone took the wheels off of it on new year's day. None of the neighbors complains because it's a nice warning to not leave your car abandoned here.

Walter Cooke

I found Portland to be "mostly harmless" on my visits from Canada. The airport is efficient - I think of Portland as the 'gateway city' to fly into and then journey onward to other more interesting spots in Oregon.

Mae

I could buy your house, but only if you gave a discount for patreons

W. C.

I visited Portland from New York City on work several times. It reminded me of a city just recovering from a zombie attack. Because compared to New York it had about 1/10 of the population. I would expect to see walking around downtown. Also everybody was always running. So you'd come around a corner and a jogger would run past you only to be followed by shambling meth addicts who look like zombies. But the food was great.

kdusjjdhxksj

It sucks, but in a way where I’ll probably never leave

Yamtaggler

I haven't ever visited Portland, and I honestly haven't heard much about it. A couple of my more eccentric/insufferable friends moved out there, though, and they seemed to enjoy it.

John Robinson

I was in Portland for four days. I am mildly shocked I only went to Powell's twice.

Ben Westcott

I'm from Australia, so I don't really know much of your country, but I assume Oregon is where oregano comes from? If so, congratulations on a fine product.

Marc Jozefowicz

My wife and I visited Portland about five years ago. We enjoyed it, but one enduring memory was that the airport Uber was driven by a barefoot man and had a loose tooth resting on the backseat floormat. It felt congruous.

Thickolas

Christ, I thought it was sad when Teodor was a perpetual loser just in the context of his friend group.

Bear

I tried to move away a couple times, but I always came back.

Jane

you're welcome

Jenn

Do we all agree that losers make fast decisions though? Asking for myself

Rex Mantooth

I had a very negative time in the 7 years I spent in the PNW. I found the weather and people to be cold and indifferent, and there to be very little to do outside of drinking at bars. I can see how some individuals can enjoy it there, but every year that passes I see my time there like an abusive relationship. The further I get away from it the more I realize how horrible it was, and that I should have left sooner.

Traedran

There's punishing egotism, there's breaking haughtiness, there's forcing someone to confront the horrid realities of their life, there's the complete annihilation of a man's self-esteem as he tries not to whimper on the street, a hobo in a four-thousand dollar costume... but there's no greater shame and crawl-in-the-slime-and-look-at-yourself debasement than to be put into a position where you refer to Elon Musk as 'Sir' without currently supplying him with a restaurant-cooked meal. Téodor deserves to be forced to confront the little space in the Venn diagram of his achievements to his inflated self-esteem, the one sponsored by Bob Giacominello from Re/Max, but he doesn't deserve this. I really hope that the next comic has him finding a way out from this situation and a restored sense of fragile dignity, because this went from humorous to gratifying at the impending bubble-burst, to sympathetic, to pathetic, to this wretched flensing of a soul. The little sad bear normally makes me laugh at his sadness, but today I grow genuinely concerned.

Max Jacobs

I’m not entirely sure how to send a DM on this confounded thing, but I do have a close friend who’s looking to buy a house in Portland, Oregon, and is at least tangentially aware of who you are. If this is a serious offer, I’d like to talk with you further.

Achewood

Sent you a DM. I used the desktop version to find the DM tool.

E Corcoran

You wouldn't be congratulating us if you knew just how we make it

Jordan B

It sounds like it's expensive and kind of sucks but I live in Florida so I have no room to talk 😔 At least I never have to learn to drive in ice here

Larry Lawrence

I find that the natural beauty, food scene, and the fact that at least 3 of your favorite bands are coming to town in any given 6 month period more than make up for the city's ills. As fun as it is to blow all one's money at the bar, it has been my personal experience that there's plenty of other things to do in the PNW that are both more fun, and less expensive. Portland is what you make it, the most vocal detractors seem to be the least involved.

Cf Duddy

I have come back to read this one a lot 😂

Cf Duddy

Expect a call from Elon

A. Hamster

I live in Albuquerque, and after reading the comments about Portland (meth, coffee, murders, decent food scene), I have concluded that it is a moist version of Albuquerque.

E Corcoran

Crime got significantly worse after 2020.

E Corcoran

The goats got moved out and now a gigantic apartment building stands where once they gamboled. On the bright side the building is named after the goats.

Larry Lawrence

Sounds like your best days are still ahead of you!!

E Corcoran

Portland is the Teodor of cities

Tom Morris

Portland OR is the main American city I am interested in visiting due to the chance of meeting a high number of my favourite cartoonists and podcasters there and knowing there is a fine bicycling culture.

2scrogz

And yet even in 2020, Portland didn't crack the top 75 most dangerous cities in the US, as defined by homicide & non-negligent manslaughter rates per capita, according to Statista: https://www.statista.com/statistics/718903/ I'd also be interested to see a source for anyone holding office in Portland city govt advocating anything close to "police abolition" or "violent revolution" as you claim. A quick check on Wikipedia shows that current Mayor Wheeler actually increased the police budget during the first 3 years of his tenure, 2017-2019, and is a former republican-turned-democrat, generally regarded as moderate. According to Portland's own City Budget Office, the police budget continued to increase steadily from 2015 to 2020 - so clearly there wasn't even a successful "defund-the-police" movement, much less a successful "abolish-the-police" movement within the city's government. Where is your critique of the PPB? Surely if the city's leaders are budgeting more and more money to the police every year, but according to you, "Portland remains the undisputed ground zero of the recent murder surge," that's the fault of the cops themselves, not the local government consistently giving them more funding? Maybe turn off whatever "enlightened centrist" fantasy you're getting your "news" from, and join us in the real world, where all of these statistics are easily found? Whatever problems Portland has with homelessness/drug abuse/violent crime, can also be found pretty much anywhere else in the U.S. - maybe because we are a fading empire in economic and educational decline, and the broad lack of opportunity for real advancement, juxtaposed against massive-and-growing income inequality, causes larger societal issues than any singular city government can solve on its own. I don't even live there, but I can't understand this obsession reactionaries seem to have with tearing the place down any chance they can. Having visited, it's not really any different, public-safety-wise, than any other west coast city - and still considerably safer, statistically, than many comparably-sized cities in the midwest & south.

Gavin Byrnes

My sister lives partly in Portland, partly in Mexico City, and partly wherever she feels like for a given span of weeks. It seems to me that Portland is a fitting home for the sort of person you would imagine my sister to be (and mostly be correct). Also, Damian Lillard rules (my sister misses him a lot) and Portland Trail Blazers fans have the admirably deranged passion that one associates with small-ish markets with only one Big Four team (a la the Green Bay Packers or the San Antonio Spurs).

Achewood

I smell it getting a bit Internetty in here, and ask that nobody make any more comments in this thread, please, or I will have to delete it, which I don't want to do. Thank you all for understanding.

Kelley Campbell

We moved to Portland from Austin two years ago and I find it to be a gentle place with deep cultural support for weirdos. The food is great, and Vegan friends here say they can never move. I’m glad my daughter was born here and gets to be a kid here, though Portland as a city is not as kid-friendly as Austin.

Blake Gross

The math checks out on this. A huge number of Eureka High alumni have done this very thing.

Datura

as a perpetual east coast resident who lived in chicago for 4 years, my idea of the PNW is something like: tired left-wing anarchists who haven't returned to 90s levels of vim, effete slacktivist liberals, and increasingly unhinged right-wing separatists. then fill in the rest with 'people who smoke cigarettes'

Tim Melody Pratt

I love visiting Portland (many friends there) and even considered moving there about 16 years ago, but ultimately it's a bit too gray and rainy and occasionally snowy for me to want to be there full-time

Kate S.

I visited Portland in 2009 and liked it pretty well. Then I visited Portland in 2019 and decided it was A Bad Place and haven’t been back.