I don't know, though. About anything, really.
I have long hair and I wear what some would consider semi-ridiculous clothes. You know: skinny jeans—blue or black or gray—and black t-shirts, dress shirts with big collars, hats, a studded brown leather wrist band, Beatle boots...that kind of thing.
I've looked this way since I was 17.
But I'm an old guy now. And people think, "Well, he must be a band guy. What else could he be, walking around looking like that at his age? What kind of job could he have?"
Portland is full of musicians. There are a thousand bands here—no exaggeration—and some famous ones, too. So I'm not unusual-looking at all, aside from the fact that I don't have tattoos, because I'm not from that generation. My generation had band tees and shaggy hair, trucker wallets, Kiss. And besides, almost everyone here is covered with tattoos, even people who work in offices and cubicles or at the bank, because this is Portland and Portland is like that: full of circus freaks.
It's almost the norm.
So even if I had tattoos crawling up my neck, what would that say about me?
They say Portland is weird and that we should keep it that way, but it's about as weird as a loaf of Wonder Bread, which is kind of weird, I guess, because what the hell is Wonder Bread anyway? It's white, for one thing, and stripped of all nutritional value.
It isn't even bread. It's just filler, just...nothing.
And most of those musicians do the same thing I do for a living: They tend bar, they wait tables, they stand in doorways checking IDs.
But people always think I'm a Band Guy.
Maybe it's because a lot of my friends are, and I'm always walking into clubs without paying, and walking down the street without my glasses on and not seeing people's faces too clearly, or not waving hello when they wave hello or whatever, and they think I'm arrogant and aloof when really I'm just half-blind and vain, because I hate wearing my glasses. They hurt my nose and the spot behind my ears.
I'm a little precious, too. I mean, look at my pointy shoes with the buckles.
"Are you wearing a blouse, dude?"
"And what's up with the cowboy shirt and the fringed vest, Roger Daltry?"
So, yeah, I get it.
But I'm almost serious: Everybody looks like they're in a band here—except for a lot of the people actually in bands. They look more like lit majors, mechanics, or zine journalists. My point is, just by looking at them, you can't really tell what the hell a lot of people are anymore.
