Ah, summer. The weather’s a balmy 80 degrees, the blackberries are ripening nicely, and the Willamette beaches beckon.

What could possibly ruin the mood? Plenty.

It could be those throbbing diesel pickups invading from the suburbs. Maybe it’s the telltale tinfoil crumpled on the sidewalk outside your front stoop. Or maybe it’s the $200,000-a-year workers who never come to their downtown offices.

For many of us, a nagging series of irritations interfere with enjoying our best lives in Portland.

We won’t deny that WW is a newspaper that points fingers and picks fights—that’s our job, holding people and institutions accountable. Just one week ago, we published a Best of Portland Issue celebrating the people and places we love in this city. Consider this a chaser. Too much happy talk obscures the reality that things, to put it mildly, ain’t what they could be.

In that vein, we started almost 25 years ago inviting Portlanders to unburden themselves in an issue we call “Kvetchfest.” (Kvetch, for those of you who can’t tell a good bagel from white bread, is Yiddish word that means to complain. Think Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm, or all the dependable cranks in our comments section.)

We’ve published a Kvetchfest issue eight times since 1999, airing out the cringiness of white guys with dreadlocks, the preciousness of adults playing kickball and, from then-mayoral candidate Ted Wheeler in 2015, the difficulty of finding a weak cup of coffee in this town (seriously!).

At one time, the concept felt contrarian. People used to love Portland (especially people who didn’t live here). But things aren’t working so well now. Cops don’t come when you call (maybe it’s short-staffing, maybe it’s a lingering Blue Flu) and in the unlikely event somebody does get arrested, they probably can’t get a lawyer and they have to brave an increasingly deadly jail. Ambulances are even harder to find than squad cars. Nobody knows if meth is legal or not. For much of the past two years, we’ve been banging the drum for elected officials to direct millions of tax dollars toward glaring problems—but in Portland, we can’t get tax-and-spend liberals to spend!

Sorry, we got a little worked up there. And we broke one of our own rules for the following pages: No big policy complaints. Want to recall an elected official? Gather some signatures, lazybones. Endorsements come out in October.

Another one: No kvetching about homeless camps. Yes, we know how hot and bothered you are about the tent on your block. We get your emails. You know what, the guy in that tent isn’t having such a fun time, either—and there’s plenty of other fodder for griping, at least for one week.

Last but not least: This list is strictly about Portland. We don’t want to hear about the short-fingered vulgarian slinking toward the White House, Exxon’s determination to burn the last barrel of oil in the world, or the extinction of cute animals. To paraphrase the late House Speaker Tip O’Neill Jr., all kvetching should be local.

In the following pages, our newsroom airs its grievances, and invites a few local luminaries to do the same.

In order to make our city better—the ultimate goal of this paper—we first have to agree with what’s wrong with it. Here’s our attempt to diagnose some of the admittedly less pressing but still important ills—and provide free therapy for all. You can thank us by sending your kvetches to kvetch@wweek.com. We’ll print the best ones in future issues.

Anthony Effinger, Andrew Jankowski, Nigel Jaquiss, Lucas Manfield, Aaron Mesh, Sophie Peel and Rachel Saslow contributed kvetches.

Idling Cars

Here in the Pyrocene, as the age of forest fires and killing heat waves has become known, there are certain behaviors that should draw endless scorn. Chief among them is idling your car while you sit outside New Seasons and scroll through Instagram. This is a modern day fart in church. It’s like smoking a cigarette in a restaurant, or on a ski lift. We did it once upon a time, but no more, because it’s obnoxious. And why is it always a white guy in a bloated SUV idling in the parking lot at his kid’s soccer practice when it’s 50 degrees out? Does the purr of his eight-cylinder Chevy Climate Changer XL distract him from the fact that even a hero dose of Cialis will no longer produce an erection? Is he cold? Is he hot? Does he worry that the Saudis are going to run out of money? Does he own Exxon shares? And why are these behemoths named for things they melt, foul or destroy? GMC Yukon. GMC Denali. Chevrolet Tahoe. Toyota Tundra. Lots of these rigs head up to Mount Hood on the weekend. If you really like skiing, stop driving— much less idling—your Patton tank-sized SUV.

Red Lane Drivers

The god-ugly bright red “rapid transit” bus lanes have become, as should have been obvious from the start, nothing more than express lanes for assholes.

Freddy’s Demanding To See Your Receipt

We accept, reluctantly, that the proliferation of private security is a logical endpoint of Portland failing to bribe enough cops to work in a town where nobody kisses their thin blue asses. What we won’t abide is being treated like criminals for buying Cheerios. There is no more demeaning moment in the average Portlander’s day than presenting a receipt for inspection by a rent-a-cop before exiting Fred Meyer. It wasn’t enough that robot cameras watch our every move at checkout, or that stores keep the detergent under lock and key. Oh no: Freddy’s needed to hire a goon squad of neckless WWF contestants to guard the doors to protect its precious day-old doughnuts from walking out the door. The receipt check is the worst kind of security theater: a top-down decision that everybody should suffer until the tweaking shoplifters stop cutting into the corporate bottom line. We can’t condone spitting on your receipt before you show it, but we won’t think less of you.

Corner Missionaries

The devout manning the Seventh-day Adventist flyer stands in Northwest Portland make us anxious. They’re really nice, but we know they’re thinking, “What a blasphemous whore.”

Calling Wy’east “Mount Hood”

It’s become de rigueur to recite land acknowledgments before public meetings in Portland, and many of these well-meaning sermons seem like empty gestures. If local governments really want to do right by the First Nations, give them your house, or your office building, or Forest Park. Absent that, how about we strip away the stupid names we’ve given to the Cascade volcanoes? Go back to what the natives called them, starting with Mount Hood. The guy it was named for, British Admiral Lord Samuel Hood, was the posh son of a vicar who never laid eyes on the peak. A lackey lieutenant named William Broughton spotted the glaciated wonder in 1792 and christened it for his blue-blooded overlord. Worse yet, Hood fought for Britain against the colonies during the Revolutionary War. This load of absolute bullshit is made worse by the name that Hood’s displaced: Wy’east. That’s what the Multnomah tribe called the mountain, and it’s a way better name. Same with Klickitat (or Pahto) for Mount Adams, and Loowit for Mount St. Helens. The only risk here is that Dodge will start making a supersized SUV called the Wy’east and ruin everything (see above).

N/A Drinks

Mocktails are just $15 glasses of juice.

Jody Allen

Prior to Blazers owner Paul Allen’s untimely death in 2018, the team consistently made the playoffs. With Allen’s sister, Jody, at the helm, the Blazers have become an NBA laughingstock, a team so inept that merely being terrible would mark major progress. Meanwhile, Oregon’s wealthiest man, Phil Knight, waits in the wings, desperate to take the team off Allen’s hands. Knight built Nike through a combination of ruthlessness and marketing wizardry. He could fix the Blazers—and the moribund neighborhood where they play, but he’ll be 87 in February. It’s time for Jody to go.

Van Life Loopholes

How come hippie Portlanders who would never be caught dead driving a gas-guzzling Suburban have decided it’s totally cool to drive a $250,000 van that gets 15 miles per gallon the one time they use it to drive to Boulder?

Street Dining Sheds

A bar or restaurant with a great patio is a treasure. The wooden shacks built on street parking spaces are an abomination. Most of them have the aesthetic appeal of prison visiting rooms built inside hillbilly shanties. Yes, they kept restaurants alive during a killer virus. Like most pandemic improvisations (remote work, cocktail delivery), they suck as a new normal. You know what really brings out the flavor in that osso bucco? The sound of a Toyota 4x4 whizzing 3 feet past your head, and the light scurrying of rats under the floorboards. Dining sheds make every business district look like a World War I trench, they turn walking down the sidewalk into a gauntlet, and they leach all pleasure from going out to eat. Tear them down.

Calling Everything a Community

We will need a thorough definition of what everybody thinks the word “community” means before we can keep whatever this is going. Everyone we talk to uses this word, and nobody means the same group of people. For how lonely people claim to be, why are we always tripping over these “communities”? Do you mean to say “clique,” “customers,” or “fans” instead? Not every transaction needs to have this weird parasocial connection to it! What do people think a community does when there is such little accountability to be found among them? Why do we want to tangle each other up in the minutiae of our lives like this? Are we just cursed to forever network and make connections where none should exist?

And now, a word from some guest kvetchers…

“Portland prides itself on sex positivity, yet this city is positively lacking in people I’d let inside me. ‘Hey’ isn’t the foolproof pickup line so many Portland men think it is. I haven’t even gotten a good catcall since 2019. The only people who seem to get any action these days are 20-something-year-old polyamorous kinksters, and I love that for them, but I’m looking for a mature and charming man to talk me out my panties in under half an hour.” —Mx. Dahlia Belle, comedian and winner of Portland’s Funniest Five

“The subgroup of semi-professional protest marchers who turn protesting into a competitive sport, with long rest breaks between the protests, doing little to nothing to change things. And self-identified anarchists who don’t know what the word actually means, or what actual fascism is.” —Kate Sokoloff, co-creator of Live Wire

“First, WW using terrible pictures of me.

“Second, ‘suburban ultras’ at Timber games. Fresh off the plane from Chicago, moved into an apartment in Beaverton, quickly trade their Cubs hat for a Timbers one after one visit to the north end, yell nonstop at the referee, players and coach without knowing the first thing about soccer. Until you can juggle a soccer ball 20 times, keep your mouth shut, except during the cheers or when we score.” —City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez, candidate for mayor

“Pretentious budtenders. Ph.D. in weed. Dude, you’re just a professional stoner. I miss the simplicity of Maui Wowie.” —K. Fischler, medical professional

“What is the deal with Portlanders cranking the A/C to subzero in the summer?? Are you trying to create a new indoor Ice Age? Would they rather it be December in Aspen?? It’s July, and I am still wearing a sweater and thinking about getting a parka.” —Keith Wilson, candidate for mayor

“Not enough swimming pools.” —Micah Camden, restaurant founder

“I have a few thoughts on how y’all are ordering drinks these days. By the living ghost of Jeffery Morgenthaler: What. The. Fuck. The order goes this way, my fellow salacious sippers…size of glass, base spirit, modifiers. You order another Red Bull and vodka from me, you’re getting a shot of vodka and a Red Bull on the side. A drink by default is short. Don’t stop me halfway through and tell me you wanted it tall, because now you’ve just dirtied a glass for no reason. Tall well rum, Coke, lime, no straw. Have at least several backup plans if we don’t happen to have what you want. Also, trust your bartender. We only have your best interest at heart. I promise you, I’ve tried more drinks than you have, and want you to leave satisfied.” —Xander Almeida, bartender and Bar Therapy podcast host

“My least favorite thing about Portland is how underpaid many drag entertainers are at most (but not all) gay bars. If it’s a gay bar in Portland, there’s a high chance that your favorite drag performers are receiving a very low percentage of ticket sales. This arrangement benefits the bar owners by keeping entertainment costs low while maintaining a loyal customer base—the drag entertainers’ fans. If you speak out about it, you risk being banned from performing, since you’re considered an ‘independent contractor’ and lack any protection against retaliation for speaking up/whistleblowing. It’s a bit like that phrase, ‘The call is coming from inside the house.’ It’s giving Corporate Democrats: Pretend you care, but actions and inaction speak louder.” —Flawless Shade, drag queen

“As somebody who knows a little bit about Yiddish, I believe with all my heart that the best kvetching leads to positive change. In that spirit, my kvetch is about the Trail Blazers prioritizing future draft lotteries over winning as many games as possible now. As a lifelong basketball fan, I understand the approach to rebuilding in the NBA. But as a Portlander who loved the Blazers’ title team in 1977, the Finals teams in the early ‘90s, and all of Damian Lillard’s thrilling run, I confess that as a fan I’d like the franchise to win in real time. I’ll never stop rooting for the Trail Blazers, but I strongly suspect I’m not the only fan in Rip City kvetching for a team to put the best possible and available players on the floor every night.” —U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)

“Not enough conveyer belt sushi.” —Gov. Tina Kotek

Standing Ovation Inflation

There are plenty of wonderful performers in Portland. There are great actors, directors, producers and writers. They work hard, and they took it on the chin during the pandemic. But not every theatrical performance deserves a standing ovation. We were at The Moth a few months back. One performer was terrific. Two were solid. Two weren’t nearly as funny as our friend Margaret (who once tried to avoid waking a man in an aisle seat on an airplane by stepping on his armrests. She slipped and drove her knee into his nuts). Guess what the show got? A standing O. And the undue Moth ovation wasn’t the first. Portland audiences leap to their feet for merely delightful performances when they should be reserved for great ones. Medals, A’s and ovations mean nothing when they become commonplace. Let’s restore sanity, starting in our theaters.

Halting Meetings to Say Thanks

Public process, or the pretense of it, defines the Rose City. It’s often disingenuous but basically OK. Less OK: elected officials’ insistence on thanking staff members who present information at public meetings. Go to City Hall, Multnomah County HQ, Portland Public Schools Board meetings, Metro Council or meetings of any other local elected body and you’ll experience the same nonsense: electeds effusively thanking highly paid staff for…doing their jobs. It’s nearly as pointless as public radio hosts engaging in the same treacly faux politeness with the reporters they interview. Stop it.

$6 Cookies in Coffee Shops

We get inflation, but there’s no way flour, sugar and lard are 600% more expensive than they were a year ago. It’s a scam.

Potholes

Listen. We know the ice storm was brutal this past winter. But it’s August. Are we just waiting for the next ice storm to smooth the bumps out of Portland’s major roads? Sure, the Transportation Bureau’s broke, and yeah, the job is thankless: You spend all year filling in potholes and otherwise thrashed roadways only for the next tundra blast to start the whole Sisyphean cycle over again. But we can’t imagine this blacktop works for drivers, cyclists or walkers, and if all three groups of people are in agreement, you know there’s trouble. Vancouver is kicking our asses up and down its freshly paved roads. It’s maybe the only thing the city does better than us. Do not make us admit Vancouver does something better than Portland.

The ‘Couv’s Stupid Pier

Speaking of Vancouver…everybody’s gaga about the shiny new waterfront, topped by a jetty where nobody fishes called Grant Street Pier. It’s everything annoying about Vancouver: a monument to people who stare down their noses at Portland before they snarl traffic at the Interstate 5 Bridge with their inability to merge only to crawl to the very next exit for Jantzen Beach’s sales-tax-free strip malls. The downtown Vancouver waterfront “attraction” looks like it was built from Tilikum Crossing scrap material to whimsically resemble a sailboat for people with no imagination. It’s bland, and the irrational local love for this eyesore fuels our even stronger irrational hatred for it. Gag us with an unseasoned $15 crab cake. May it fall into the Columbia River like the Titanic.

Fart-Canned Cars and Loud Motorcycles

Do the people who unmuffle their cars by “fart-canning” them know what dicks they are? Do they know that the rest of us aren’t impressed with their growling, whining, thundering rigs? Do they know that we all fantasize about seeing their cars catch fire? Do they know that excessive noise has been linked to a whole host of seemingly unrelated ailments, including heart disease, high blood pressure, and low birth rate? Do they know that we hope they get those things before we do? Do they know that when we hear a loud car or a truck that sounds like an aging 737, we determine immediately that they have penises the size of baby carrots? Do they wonder why they are incels? Asking all these things for a friend.

Camping With Gas

One of Portland’s undisputed charms: its proximity to dozens if not hundreds of campgrounds. Trading the roar of TriMet buses and street takeovers for the gurgle of pristine creeks, the trilling of songbirds, and splendor of silence only to post up next to some asshole who brought a gas-powered generator to power his RV? Disappointing.

Brats

Portland parents encourage self-expression from their children so much that the kids are actually just poorly behaved little shits.

Being Too Into Portland’s National Brand

It’s actually hard to tell which is more annoying: the social media clout chasers who wander the city looking for exhibits of human misery to prove that Portland is a wasteland of failed liberalism, or the artificially cheerful civic boosterism that asks us to say nice things about each other like Thumper the Fucking Rabbit. We’ll say the naysayers are a hair more irritating, if only because they’re also supremely dishonest. They all have account names like “Logic Man of PDX,” shoot pictures of some poor soul taking a grumpy, and act like they exposed a truth that the MSM was conspiring to hide. Congrats, pal, you saw some poop—we’d better elect some Republicans right away! But spare some pique for the endless positivity campaigns that pledge to “love,” “save” and otherwise celebrate incredibly unimpressive achievements, like we’re so insecure that we need to be praised for not having a dumpster catch fire all seven days of the week. You know what? Portland isn’t a hellhole and Portland isn’t special. It’s a city. Get over yourselves, you exhausting schmucks.

It’s Casual Friday Every Day

Portlanders don’t dress up for anything. Jeans and a hoodie to the Schnitz…on a Saturday night…to your own mother’s funeral? (Fine, I stretched it a bit but not by much.) It’s a matter of respect—for self and for a moment—that still matters, even if Portlanders lie to themselves and say it does not and that nobody notices. It does, and we do. Do you want to feel like the same athleisure-wearing lump seven days a week like in 2020? Wash your hair, put on an outfit purchased this decade in colors that coordinate, and show the world you’re trying even a little. See, doesn’t that feel better?

More guests unburden themselves...

“Being from Portland has become somewhat of a rarity. And what irritates me is how surprised and downright astonished people are when they find out you are actually a person who grew up here. It’s an unavoidable situation because so many people are moving here, which has its pros and cons. BUT YES, some of us are from here, it’s not like this place was vacant until everyone else decided to move here. A lot of my closest friends aren’t from Portland. But when you become like an artifact in a museum because in a group of 15 people from California, the Midwest, New York, Arizona and everywhere else, your the only one who actually went to school here is kind of annoying. Yes, we are from here, it shouldn’t be so unbelievable.” —Swiggle Mandala, rapper and Best New Band winner

“I get it. Our city has problems. There are real challenges. But self-loathing and Portland-bashing accomplishes absolutely nothing. Don’t contribute to the negative narrative by bashing on your hometown. You’re from the Rose City! Rip City! Stumptown! Portland, Oregon U.S.A.! If someone talks trash about our city—talk back!” —Andrew Hoan, CEO, Portland Metro Chamber

“If I knock on your door this year for the election and you have a Black Lives Matter, In Our Community, Protect Abortion or are flying any type of pride flag, trans flag, or Buddhist prayer flags, but decide to be a complete asshole to people doing actual grinding work to make those things true in my America, there’s is a special place in hell for you.” —Felisa Hagins, executive director, SEIU Oregon State Council

“Environmentalists who drive their (gas powered) Subarus, wearing their (oil product) rain gear, to protest on the Willamette from their (oil product) plastic kayaks and lecture the rest of us about the evils of oil. Holdover hippies smoking pot, grown in greenhouses using tanks of carbon dioxide to ‘enhance the bud,’ lecturing me on the evils of planet-killing CO2.” —Lars Larson, talk radio host, KXL-FM

“I’m so tired of Planning.

“Back in the ‘70s, Oregon Senate Bill 100 instituted a statewide mandate requiring cities to plan for growth in order to avoid “Californication,” aka SoCal-style sprawl. By the late ‘90s and early aughts, Portland had become a global darling for its robust planning culture and its highly ‘engaged citizenry’ which organizes meetings about planning meetings for planning meetings about planning. Here, we show up to weigh in at community forums, commission hearings, and council meetings on housing, transportation, and land use with the same fervor that some places turn out for Friday night football.

“I spent a decade hosting thousands of leaders from cities around the world who traveled to Portland to learn about our Premier Planning™, and in that time I never ran out of Really Amazing and Innovative Plans and Planning Processes to share with them.

“Problem is, we suck at implementing our wonderful plans. Portland has dozens (could even be hundreds—I haven’t counted lately) of the most thoroughly researched, beautifully organized, publicly vetted, go nowhere plans. Should it be any wonder, really, that my dissertation on Portland planning is only 75% complete? I learned how not to finish from the best of them!

“Kvetching aside, my guidance to Portland’s next mayor and City Council is this: Don’t launch any new plans until you finish the ones you’ve got.” —Sarah Iannarone, executive director of the Street Trust

“As a professional dog receptionist—literally handling the business of this city’s canine population—I can say with good authority that there’s no amount of you shouting ‘THEY’RE FRIENDLY!’ that’s going to change the fact that the dog I’m walking is… not.” —Joe John Sanchez III, Funniest Five comedian

“Portlandia was never real, and it is over, please. We don’t need any more 20-somethings moving here to retire. We need more ambitious, action-oriented 20-somethings to move here and build something. Come to Portland to get hired, not to retire. We’ve got work to do.” —City Commissioner Dan Ryan, aka #SassyDaddy

“I hate it when colleagues and friends complain that East Portland is too far and are reluctant to make plans to cross 82nd Avenue to grab a bite to eat. Yes, we need better bus service and bike routes to make it easier to get across town (stay tuned, we’re working on it with the 2025 legislative transportation package!). But if you’re looking for a good bite to eat and you’ve never swung through the Jade District, you’re missing out. From the dumplings at Master Kong, to the vegan noodle soups at Van Hanh to the dim sum at the aptly named Excellent Cuisine, the best food in town is being served up out here in the Jade District.” —State Rep. Khanh Pham (D-East Portland)

“‘Last call’ used to mean something. Specifically, that your chance for a final round at the neighborhood bar had arrived. I don’t know when they got together while nobody was watching and switched its meaning to ‘we are closing in 15 minutes.’ I expect (and deserve) a reasonable amount of time to order, consume and enjoy my third tequila-soda-grapefruit. Which is not a Paloma, by the way.” —Alec Marchant, artist

“I can’t think of anything to complain about in Portland...for free.” —Anthony Hudson/Carla Rossi, drag clown and performance artist