The Dream Of Portlandia Was Alive In Philly Last Night

In March 2007, two of my friends, Jim and Ken, and I went to Portland, Oregon, for a week to visit two other friends, Jacob and Steph, who had moved out there on a whim simply because they heard it was a pretty cool place to live. To say the trip was a revelation might be an overstatement, but not by much: I immediately planned on driving cross-country to move out there, but, for some stupid reason, I ended up chickening out and buying a house instead.

Still, the dream lives on in my mind, hoping that one day I’ll make my way out there to live and work for at least a year. Until then, I live vicariously through Portlandia, Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein’s irreverent and hilarious satire that, much like a Christopher Guest mockumentary, doesn’t cruelly ridicule its subject matter, but pokes gentle fun while embracing its oddness. Portland is a city that is genuinely odd; in the opening credits, a graffiti-ridden wall proudly proclaims “KEEP PORTLAND WEIRD”, and the show makes it a point to showcase the weird – to the point that the viewer is left saying, “No, there’s no way there’s people like that out there.” (Oh, but there are.)

Thank you, Instagram, for your immediate photo editing capabilities!

When tickets were announced for a Portlandia tour, I immediately jumped at the chance, and quickly purchased two general admission tickets to the February 19th show at the Trocadero in Philadelphia. The tickets sold out so quickly that a late show was added for that same night, which only shows how popular this little show has become. (And to think it all started with a YouTube channel called ThunderAnt.) On the night of the show, Meredith and I hopped on the 47 right around the corner from our apartment and, after defying the laws of physics and humanity with a bus driver who was apparently trying to outrun mythical bus-consuming demons, arrived at the Troc with plenty of time to spare. We got in line just in time to hear two St. Vincent lookalikes whining unironically over the recent Grammy win of Bon Iver. “Best new artist?” one sniffed derisively. “Yeah, welcome to four years ago,” the other retorted. “Then again, Arcade Fire won last year…”

Once inside, Meredith and I found two spots in the balcony, and she ran off to purchase a poster. I whipped out my iPhone to play a round of Words With Friends, and saw that a lot of people around me were doing the same: in the seated area below, at least half of the crowd were dicking around on their smartphones. I Tweeted sarcastically about it, then realized the soul-crushing irony: despite my best efforts, I’d become a modern-day pseudo-hipster (a word I hate using and I fear is becoming our generation’s “hippie” to describe anything that is quirky, off-beat, or unusual, and I genuinely hope the irrational hatred of hipsters dies off pretty quickly). I was even wearing Chucks, though I’d eschewed the plaid shirt and cords in favor of jeans and a sweater.

After sitting around for an hour, the lights dimmed and a screen behind the stage illuminated with a video of Portland’s mayor, played by the wonderful Kyle MacLachlan, who welcomed us to the show and had us repeat a few lines of general courtesy. Then, Armisen and Brownstein ambled onstage to a standing ovation and engaged in a hilarious bit of banter about the differences in text messages between the two: the former tends to send flowery, overly verbose admissions of love and admiration, while the latter sends generic, boilerplate texts. Feeling like she was being taken to task, Brownstein cheerfully offered to text Armisen to right wrongs, and he held up his phone and mumbled, “It’s a blank text.” The audience laughed, but apparently not hard enough; Armisen and Brownstein joked that they weren’t good at endings (which is occasionally evident in the show), and embraced awkwardly.

Taken by Meredith

Armisen (on Rickenbacker bass), Brownstein (on guitar), and their two supporting musicians – Rebecca Cole, from Brownstein’s Wild Flag, on keyboards, and Michael Benjamin Lerner, from Telekinesis, on drums – then performed the debut episode’s ‘The Dream Of The 90s Is Alive In Portland’, complete with the running commentary as Jason returning to LA from his trip to Portland, who tells friend Donnie all about it. After the song, Brownstein announced that they had it wrong, and showed a video of the season 2 sketch, ‘The Dream Of The 1890s Is Alive In Portland’, which got huge amounts of laughter. The two addressed asked if we’d prefer to see new videos or already-aired videos; the audience cheered unanimously in favor of the former.

Armisen and Brownstein then engaged the audience in a bit of back and forth, asking us all where the “cool” places of Philadelphia were. Someone shouted Fishtown, followed by an admission that they grew up there, which got some boos (?!), while others shouted South Philly. (One drunken woman a few spots to our left shouted “West Chester!”, a suburb of Philly about 30 miles southwest. She would prove to be downright annoying over the course of the evening.) Two audience members were brought up and gently grilled about what makes Philly Philly, and when Brownstein asked what one generalization about Philly annoys them the most, they both – and several audience members – announced, “Cheesesteaks.” Brownstein laughed and said, “Yeah, I got, like, nine texts from friends saying I should get a cheesesteak!” Someone shouted, “You should!” to which Armisen mentioned, “Hm, a little contradictory there…” The one girl onstage said, “Yeah, we’re known for that.”

A three-part video (“saga”, as Brownstein called it) from an upcoming episode followed, which showed MacLachlan’s Mayor once again pitted against Armisen and Brownstein: the two approached him to steadfastly request that the Olympics never be hosted in Portland, to which the Mayor agreed and asked the two to spread the message. (A black PDX hat was offered to Armisen, who refused it by saying he doesn’t look good in hats. Upon their exit, the Mayor noticed Armisen didn’t take the hat, and messaged his assistant Sam – the actual mayor of Portland – to courier a box of hats of varying sizes to Armisen’s house.) Armisen and Brownstein ran throughout the city, spreading their anti-Olympics message, before running into Greg Louganis, who sat them down in a hot tub and lectured to them that the Olympics were a good thing, a veritable melting pot of culture and people – much like Portland. Convinced and converted, Armisen and Brownstein hopped on bikes to the Mayor, who had just taken an oath to never allow the Olympics to infiltrate Portland. After hearing Armisen’s and Brownstein’s appeals, the officiator congratulated them for winning Portland’s first triathlon (“Actually, we didn’t swim in a pool, it was a hot tub,” Brownstein clarified, which fell on deaf ears), and held a ceremony to present their awards. MacLachlan sang Portland’s anthem, an improvised aria that became progressively ridiculous.

Interspersed throughout these segments was another musical performance of ‘She’s Making Jewelry Now’, and then a slide show of pictures Armisen and Brownstein found on each others’ computers, complete with commentary. One notable moment was a young Brownstein proudly holding up a can of Tab, at which Armisen laughed and said, “Isn’t it ridiculous how children pose like that with everything?” Brownstein countered, “Yeah, but I was most proud of the fact that I was wearing a bathing suit nowhere near water.” There was a touching moment when Armisen showed two pictures of him with Brownstein, of the first and second times they met.

What was apparent throughout was the natural chemistry between the two. Nothing seemed scripted whatsoever, and everything flowed genuinely. When they were performing musical numbers, Armisen appeared gleeful to be holding a bass next to Brownstein, who commanded the stage with every strum of her guitar. They’re natural partners, and even if they aren’t romantically involved, they’re a cute couple, and you can tell there’s a great deal of love and respect between the two.

What didn’t flow naturally was the Q&A session, though that was to no fault of Armisen’s and Brownstein’s. A few decent questions were asked, and someone presented Brownstein with a vinyl copy of Bryan Adams’ Reckless, though the aforementioned drunken woman got the floor and asked, “Who enjoys it more – the hot dog or the person eating the hot dog?” There was a clear amount of confusion between the audience and the two on stage, and Armisen said, “Well, I guess the person, because the hot dog is being eaten…” Brownstein said, “I can’t believe you answered that,” to which Armisen countered, “Yeah, but I said I’d answer any question…” The woman, apparently undeterred by her inebriated idiocy, shouted, “Marry me, Fred!” to which her obviously uncomfortable friends shrunk and someone in the audience shouted back, “Shut up!” Never change, Philadelphia.

After the conclusion of the Olympics saga was another great sketch called “Canoe Dance”, where Armisen, dressed up like an older man, jumped into a canoe and, well, danced. Another one of those moments where you ask yourself, “This can’t really exist, can it?” But Brownstein asked afterwards, “Have you guys ever seen a canoe dance?” Getting a negative response, she said, “Oh, it’s something else.”

No Catnap?! Over it.

The show closed with a trio of songs, with special guest Eleanor Friedberger, two of the songs coming from her excellent Last Summer album. After the second song, she thanked her new backing band, and Armisen thanked their new singer. The set closed with a rendition of ‘Got My Mind Set On You’, and, as they unplugged their guitars to a standing ovation, Armisen and Brownstein thanked the audience and ran off.

As Meredith and I exited into the hustle and bustle of Chinatown, I remarked that we should go to Portland for a week for vacation. “Doesn’t sound like much of a vacation though, does it?” Meredith asked, a point I conceded, and clarified that we should go for a week to explore the city. We hopped onto the 47 home and I heard the unmistakable sound of vomit hitting the side and floor of the bus, and as the stench overpowered us and people moved away from the unfazed vomiter with puke running down his sleeve or got off several stops earlier than planned, I realized that going to Portland would be a vacation at this point.

That dream is still alive in my mind.