They Noticed Us!
You know you live in a wannabe city when the jabs of a national commentator make the front page of the local daily. Follow the bouncing ball...

This:



Led to this:

Stephen Colbert, you're on notice
Nailed you - Sure, call us "communists," but you need our creative collective to publish your comic book

Friday, October 12, 2007
KRISTI TURNQUIST
The Oregonian Staff

Memo to: Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" Topic: What Have You Got Against Portland, Anyway?

Dear Stephen,

Hey, we know your persona on "The Colbert Report" spoofs such blustery cable TV talk-show hosts as Bill O'Reilly and Chris Matthews. We get it. It's funny. Kinda.

And look, we laughed right along when you interviewed Rep. Earl Blumenauer on your show and said the congressman's "obsession" with bicycling "borders on the interesting." We chuckled when you grilled Rep. Darlene Hooley about Oregon's medical marijuana laws, asking her, "Are you high right now?"

...

Followed by this:

Grin and Colbert It: The furor over Stephen Colbert's attempt to extort Powell's Books for "eight buck cash money" has garnered considerable press coverage in, well, Portland.
Local station KATU managed to pinch out a whole feature on the conflict. Hey, Colbert's jokes are ten times funnier when repeated by Portland news anchors.

The Oregonian put Colbert "on notice" for calling the entire city "communists." (Memo to the big O: you're a little late to that party.)

And here's "a husband, dad, small business owner, drummer, and former newspaper reporter" who used his blog to spin his own campaign against the Oregonian for calling Colbert a "fake news guy."

There hasn't been this much excitement in Portland since last week, when a bike messenger posted to Indy Media that he spotted Jerry Garcia alive and well downtown, and the message boards erupted with links to bootlegs of everyone's favorite thirty-minute guitar riffs from Grateful Dead live shows.