Portland and Seattle have an uneasy relationship; Seattle is seen as the uptight Carlton aching for that elusive east coast appeal to Portland's cool yet unreliable Fresh Prince. Portlanders, resentful of big money because they have none, love to rail against capitalism and possessors of wealth. Money from property taxes (we have no purchasing tax) goes mostly to 'keeping Oregon green' and sort of smart. Athletics in Oregon tend to be scoffed at except at OSU and U of O, both college towns. During the "Bring Big Baseball to Portland" bumper-sticker phase, some baseball fans knew that Portland would never be a place where baseball could ever get "big" because watching sports just isn't a priority in this city. Personally, I maintain that no true fan of baseball would ever want Portland to be a second-rate Mariners (redundant).

Unlike baseball and football, which we left to Seattle, Portland once embraced the Blazers. I remember going to games when I was 10 or 11 and it being packed. By "it," I mean the Rose Garden, the architectural monolith on the Eastside built in the height of Allen's big-spending sports-loving days. Lately, though, seats are empty and the expensive stars that Allen handpicked are constantly stoned and consistently disappointing, getting into fights in the parking lot of strip clubs and probably talking a lot of trash about their effete owner like the petulant divas they are paid so much to be. One of these stars shops at my grocery store and he has a Bentley and a hot supermodel wife. He seems undisturbed with his team's reputation as being lazy and unapproachable, like a laconic cat in mesh. I, like most every girl confronted with men of near mythical stature, approached him and said "Gosh, you're tall" when all I really wanted to say was "So I hear you like white women." This was more likely to occur ten years ago than it is today, although it would have been endearing if I said it then too.

Paul Allen wants the fans of Portland to pay for the Blazers because other cities (like Denver) gave subsidies to their sports teams. Except Paul Allen is ridiculously rich, like the 7th richest man or some insane bullshit like that. It's like these people from Seattle came down with a caravan of jewels and beautiful women, took us to a really nice dinner that we didn't especially want to eat and at the end of the meal said "Can you pick up the tab? It wasn't satisfying enough for us to pay." No, Paul Allen, we cannot. We love our Blazers, but we were just as mystified as the rest of the country was when you were shelling out massive ducats to awe them. Just because the team isn't doing as well as you expected it to (which seems to happen a lot), you have to make hard decisions and stand by your man.

Paul Allen has owned the Blazers for ten years, and now he wants the city to help pay for the debts he incurred with the building and maintenance of the arena. Portlanders, however, are unemployed and uneducated and can barely afford basic healthcare, much less taking on the relatively paltry debts of a billionaire. Portlanders have no money to give and so he is threatening to move our team. Now, I've heard that abject poverty occurs almost everywhere except on Queen Anne Hill, where residents are known to cover actual gold with chocolate foil and pimping one's chariot ride with Kenny G is common. Not in Portland, get the fuck out of here with your reindeer games and go back to Seattle so you can give the Seahawks a supportive money shot and a hearty clap on the back. Ride or Die Mr. Allen, but leave the Blazers in Portland. You're a fucking ugly bitch. I want to stab you to death and then play around with your blood.

Basketball died during the last run of the Bulls championship. Its as exciting as watching flies fuck now.

Television, or should I say television money, ruined every professional sports team.

The Blazers used to sell out every game, for years on end. New ownership came along and Clyde Drexler asked to be traded that year. That was 10 years ago and they haven't done shit yet, except choking it up against the Lakers that one time but we won't get into that. Portland fans have been as loyal to this team over the years as a fanbase can be, but in this case it comes right down to ownership, and ownership only. They have filled their well appointed locker-room and "fanciest private jet in the NBA" with crap personalities and bad coaches. Mo Cheeks, hello? I've got a feeling that the mighty mite David Stern will put an expensive designer shoe up Paul Allen's punk ass and let him know who's in charge.

By the way, go Suns!

I laugh at the whole idea.

Paul Allen, Gordon Moore, Gates, Jobs, Wozniak, the homebrew computer club owns NFL teams, NBA franchises, 400 foot yachts,digital 75k sq foot homes and anything else they want.

hell they could take over the world by running a monopoly on the ownership of the operating systems and processors in 99% of all PC's sold worldwide...to the tune of 100s of billions in their pockets annually..

in fact we should be thankful they havent bought the NBA and NFL,fired Stern, Tagliabue and made all worldwide broadcasts digital over MSN and itunes exclusively...

wow that thought is strokeworthy

Ducats...pimping a chariot? Is this jimrome.com?

I loooove Oregon. Oregon always makes me feel good, because I know I'm not there, and never will be. When the Suns are losing, I can think of the Jailblazers. When Portland made a run for Tom Chambers back in the 80's, he chose Phoenix instead. When I feel sad, I recall that Astoria is the suicide capital of America (or used to be), probably because of all the clouds which routinely roll in 3.5 feet above sea level.

There's a little place in central Oregon, Bend, which has got to be the most fucked up place that I've never been to. When I was a fraud investigator for a bank, We took 2 large losses one year. One was from a guy who ran up a $20,000 bill on someone's MasterCard to establish a new "principality" called Hoot River, governed by a "King Phillip." The wise king finally agreed to pay us when we threatened to arrest him, and sent a full payment...in Monopoly money. He did 3-5 for forgery and theft. Some kid there once stole his mommy's card and went on a shopping spree. When I called the kids parents and told them what I'd found, and told her that's she would have to pay unless she filed a police complaint, she launched into 5 minutes of uncontrollable sobbing describing the torturous pain of her existence, I felt like a Franz Kafka novel was happening before my ears. She never went to the police, within 90 days, junior had all sorts of new video games and fly clothes, but Mom and Dad had no car.

Sometimes I wonder what happened to these people, but then I get over it and finish my sandwich.

Don't get me wrong, AZ is fucked up 7 ways to Sunday (too hot, no rain, old farts, methheads, stoned cholos, coyotes, crooked Mormon politicians, polygamists), but I love Oregon.

"There's Horny and indulgence, and then there is evil Roman Emperor-reserved disgust...to be so rich as to afford (and acquire) several concubines whose sole purpose in life is to hang around your home, and whenever you get a hardon, to drop to their knees and blow you....well, it may be strokeworthy at first, but it gets pretty sick/old once you ask yourself the inevitable question "What's Next? What do I do now? For an Encore?"



I dunno burg, thats a "how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop" question.


However according to Tony Montana we need people like that to point our fingers at and say "thats the bad guy"

damn thats a great monologue.