IT'S ABOUT 2 AM, AND I'M CRUISING DOWNTOWN

[July 27th, 2005] It's about 2 am, and I'm cruising downtown, looking for flaggers. A good-looking guy is waving in front of the Shanghai Tunnel. With a thick Irish brogue, he tells me he's going to Hillsboro. Score!

"Hang on a second, I want to change the music before I pull out." "Cool, what've you got?" I hand him the CD wallet. "Oh great, Mercury Rev-you have to play this!" So we head west listening to Deserter's Songs.

Before the freeway, I do something uncharacteristic, I pull over and move my crap so he can move up front. With the music cranked, it was hard to talk properly with him in the back.

It started as a conversation about feeling trapped: in a job, a locale, a mindset. I feel trapped in all three. The locale isn't so much an issue for him, as his employer, Intel, is sending him away in three weeks. He asks where I'd live if I could live anywhere. I say San Francisco.

He says Las Vegas is the city that best evokes his home country. So we talk about Ireland becoming one giant theme park. I get it now. Vegas has ersatz Paris, ersatz New York, ersatz everything. And now a lot of "real" places, like Times Square, are being repainted to be more like Vegas.

I'm trying to figure out what an ersatz Portland would look like. My vote's for the Shanghai tunnels, Bud Clark's statue, and the late, lamented 24 Hour Church of Elvis. And Powell's. Suggestions?