It is pledge week in Oregon. Actually, it’s pledge season in Oregon, where our NPR affiliate, OPB, seems to take its fundraising cues from the marketing people who bring us the holidays. What I mean by that is that I recently read that Valentine’s Day is on February 14 in order to bridge the sales and marketing wasteland that would otherwise exist between Christmas and Easter. Isn’t that pathetic? Our lives are on a spreadsheet, and included on that spreadsheet are OPB’s pledge drives, which used to happen two or three times a year. These days, the next one begins, it seems, before the current one ends.
I don’t know if it’s my general mood, or the very disturbing article I read, and reread, and reread yet again about some of the more remarkable ways that we’re doomed, but this particular pledge drive is driving me to a place I never thought I’d go: I am now one of those people who talks back to the radio.
This being Portland, and this being 2009, most of the jabber this weekend revolved around two terms: community and green.
Let’s start with community. When I was in the third grade, my father fell off the roof of our house. He had a thing for ladders, and heights, and impossible angles. He landed on the sidewalk at the base of the stairs that led to the front porch. He almost died. During the month he spent in the hospital, three of the husbands in the neighborhood came to our house and finished repairing the roof. There were no television cameras, there were no prayers posted to Facebook or tweeted out indiscriminately, there were no statements about the importance of “giving back” uttered in voices trembling with emotion on the evening news. Our neighbors helped my parents because they liked them. My parents were liked because the liquor cabinet at our house was always stocked and always open. The correlations were so much clearer in those days.
I never really thought about it until a few days ago, but that experience has always been my default definition of the term community, which got a real workout this weekend. On Saturday evening the pledge drivers were gushing about how very cool it is to get an update about some live music somewhere in Portland, perhaps a performance by a band you’ve never heard of, and because of OPB you can get in your car and go see a show and be part of the community. You can share it all with your friends on Facebook, you can use Twitter to talk about it, send some pics from your cell. By going to see a show, you can be a part of a community. Hell, you can even build a brand new community! “If you’re a new community member or a long-time member of the community, and you’re on your way to a concert you hadn’t planned on going to, call us here at OPB and let us know how that feels for you,” gushed a male voice. Here’s my answer, I thought from my couch: it doesn’t.
And of course there were giveaways. This being Portland, OPB has new recyclable shopping bags that they’re giving to new and renewing members to show their appreciation. The bags have cooler designs on to them, brought to us by some community-minded “artisan.” Has “artisan” officially replaced the word “artist”? It seems so. But back to the bags: I’d bet everything I own that there are more than a million recyclable shopping bags in Portland. I have 10 myself, and I haven’t even tried. And I wonder: Where are those things made? What are they made of? Is there a difference between reusable and recyclable? If you’re using something made of petroleum products, wouldn’t it be more environmentally considerate to use the brown paper bags from the store? Brown paper bags, by the way, make great wrapping paper. What about the dye used for the design? What kind of environmental impact do the colorings have? As I was pondering these questions, and laughing – sort of – at the shameless fakeness of it all, the female funding seeker chimed in with this gem: she loves the new bags from OPB, adores them really. That’s because she uses them to organize all the odds and ends that seem to never stop accumulating in her car. Perhaps she drives a hybrid, I thought as I popped in my favorite Willie Nelson CD.
I don’t know if it’s my general mood, or the very disturbing article I read, and reread, and reread yet again about some of the more remarkable ways that we’re doomed, but this particular pledge drive is driving me to a place I never thought I’d go: I am now one of those people who talks back to the radio.
This being Portland, and this being 2009, most of the jabber this weekend revolved around two terms: community and green.
Let’s start with community. When I was in the third grade, my father fell off the roof of our house. He had a thing for ladders, and heights, and impossible angles. He landed on the sidewalk at the base of the stairs that led to the front porch. He almost died. During the month he spent in the hospital, three of the husbands in the neighborhood came to our house and finished repairing the roof. There were no television cameras, there were no prayers posted to Facebook or tweeted out indiscriminately, there were no statements about the importance of “giving back” uttered in voices trembling with emotion on the evening news. Our neighbors helped my parents because they liked them. My parents were liked because the liquor cabinet at our house was always stocked and always open. The correlations were so much clearer in those days.
I never really thought about it until a few days ago, but that experience has always been my default definition of the term community, which got a real workout this weekend. On Saturday evening the pledge drivers were gushing about how very cool it is to get an update about some live music somewhere in Portland, perhaps a performance by a band you’ve never heard of, and because of OPB you can get in your car and go see a show and be part of the community. You can share it all with your friends on Facebook, you can use Twitter to talk about it, send some pics from your cell. By going to see a show, you can be a part of a community. Hell, you can even build a brand new community! “If you’re a new community member or a long-time member of the community, and you’re on your way to a concert you hadn’t planned on going to, call us here at OPB and let us know how that feels for you,” gushed a male voice. Here’s my answer, I thought from my couch: it doesn’t.
And of course there were giveaways. This being Portland, OPB has new recyclable shopping bags that they’re giving to new and renewing members to show their appreciation. The bags have cooler designs on to them, brought to us by some community-minded “artisan.” Has “artisan” officially replaced the word “artist”? It seems so. But back to the bags: I’d bet everything I own that there are more than a million recyclable shopping bags in Portland. I have 10 myself, and I haven’t even tried. And I wonder: Where are those things made? What are they made of? Is there a difference between reusable and recyclable? If you’re using something made of petroleum products, wouldn’t it be more environmentally considerate to use the brown paper bags from the store? Brown paper bags, by the way, make great wrapping paper. What about the dye used for the design? What kind of environmental impact do the colorings have? As I was pondering these questions, and laughing – sort of – at the shameless fakeness of it all, the female funding seeker chimed in with this gem: she loves the new bags from OPB, adores them really. That’s because she uses them to organize all the odds and ends that seem to never stop accumulating in her car. Perhaps she drives a hybrid, I thought as I popped in my favorite Willie Nelson CD.
