I read something years ago in England about a photographer that liked to take photos of people on the train. He supposed that trains are one of the few places where people can truly think. This was, of course, before the ubiquitous presence of the Internet with smart phones and 3G. Or even when a few people didn't have mobile phones at all and mp3 players were just a gleam in Apple's eye. Back in those days we had a book, a copy of the Metro, possibly a Sun for the er, intelligent readers but very little else. And god help you if you tried to talk to someone. God help you.
So this photography exhibit was photos of people with their heads on the window, looking out at the passing landscape,
thinking. I myself did this more than once and on long journeys was charmed by how otherworldly the silver reflection on Virgin trains made me look. What I thought about much of that time, I can't remember now. I only really recall one striking realization about the women of the North of England. They didn't feel as real as the ones at home.
Never had I seen the pull of women's magazines as strongly as I did on the train commute into Manchester.
Or at least that's what I assumed before I actually returned home. Up until recently I managed to avoid Old Town on a Friday night. It was only the sweet song of Ground Kontrol that drew me that far east of 23rd. And it took a lot of luring. A song that only a place that serves beer and has video games could sing.
Plus, some residual memory of 2001 kept telling me Old Town is full of drug dealers and prostitutes. It's a place to avoid unless investigating a concert or the drag show at Embers. That little voice tells me the north west quadrant of Burnside below 16th simply is Not Safe due to crime and violence. Here be dragons, etc. And honestly, everything that little voice is saying was probably true 10 years ago. Back then downtown Portland on a Friday night was a ghost town, save a few hipsters sipping cheap scotch in the Shanghai Tunnel. Or bands that drifted in and out of town, always on week nights, never selling out.
Now, what that little memory voice tells me is wrong. Sure, that part of town is still littered with the destitute, the addicted, the toothless cigarette bumming people hanging around places to get food. But what I didn't know was how close Portland is getting to Manchester.
Those sleek girls on the train, with straightened hair, fake tans, fake eyelashes, knock off shoes and tailored outfits are here now too. And whether they come from beyond the tunnel in the west or 122nd in the east to go in to the city and party or if they actually have Portland zip codes, like the girls of Preston to Peter Street, I don't really know. What I do know is they're here. And I'm not sure how I feel about it.
Truthfully, venues like Dirty, or the Dixie will always exist. But Portland never really had them. There was the Copper Penny, sure, and a few short lived dives. But most of Portland's night life was queer or blue collar. Clubs opened and died in 3 months. But these places, where they have a drink called the Hurricane Katrina (bartender throws water on you, slaps you and then drops a shot down your throat.) and the staff look straight off the front page of SuicideGirls.com or Dirty where they encourage their female patrons to swing and dance on tables, look busy and poised to stay.
So now, 10 years later, I'm sitting on an Amtrak Cascades train in business class. Not quite the cattle car of Northern Rail Wigan to Victoria service but it will do. And I'm looking out the window at a very different landscape, thinking of how the women here have changed. And wondering, in 30 years would my children think the same? Because really, how much more is there to take off? Are they going to end up wearing string bikinis and humping posts that look like suggestive shampoo bottles? Where does this end?
Maybe in 10 years, on another train, I'll come up with the answer.
