Bloregon Country

Tamolitch Blue Pool
Tamolitch Blue Pool, the water collected from an ancient waterfall, is so clear you can see down 30 ft. By the way, this picture has nothing to do with the story below. It’s just one of the cool-as-fuck things about this state.

“Oh, it was so miserable! Falling down into pig shit and being zapped by that damn electric fence!” Doris howled at her memory, tears of laughter gullying down her cheeks.

Doris and Mike were our introduction to  Oregon—the hallowed haven for misfits, hippies, and enthusiasts of the great outdoors. They’d built their dream home in Roseburg, a quaint town known as the “Timber Capital of the Nation,” and hosted several rooms in their custom home on AirBnB.

I was struck immediately by the amount of art in the home—landscape oil paintings, a Japanese-style heron mural with cherry blossoms, Iraqi onyx countertops, abundant tile mosaics, expertly painted plaster leaves and fruit along the trim of each room—and I discovered that lifelong painter Doris had made everything herself. Mike was a master carpenter and builder, and this mid-60s couple had created everything in their home apart from the basic framing. It had been an empty canvas for their combined talent, and it was beautiful.

They’d built a scenic chicken coop and a large garden with peppers, corn, tomatoes, various lettuces, and marijuana, which has been legal here for recreation since 2015.

As longtime hosts for international guests, they’d accumulated a large collection of delicious wines and cordials from around the world, which they shared on the night Doris told her tragicomic story about falling into ankle-deep pig shit. She even brought out her delicious pot-infused, chocolate chip cookies, which had been cross-hatched for dosing purposes. She explained that a quarter was perfect to combat pain, a half to feel slightly euphoric, and a whole to have a good night. We stayed up late conversing with Mike, Doris, and a pediatric cardiologist from Nicaragua living in Portland. We even played with Mike’s handmade gas-can guitar with brilliantly colored designs, and finally fell into a restful sleep induced by good company and cheer.

The next morning, Doris made omelettes from her coop’s fresh eggs and vegetables from the garden. The delicious eggs had shells of seemingly unnatural hues, light blue and speckled creamsicle, colors which had been obscured by the tradition of their boring white or brown supermarket counterparts.

It was then that I really fell hard for this state and decided to come out of the closet to my family: I’m an Oregonian trapped inside the body of a Californian. For those of you unfamiliar with my life’s trajectory, I’ve lived all over the world—six months in London, two-and-a-half years in Japan, nine months in southeast Asia, six months in Brazil, ten months in Argentina, and plenty of shorter trips and adventures in between—and it’s miraculous to have traveled the globe several times over in search of a home, and to return to the Pacific Northwest to find it.

Yes, it’s crunchy as fuck here. Yes, it’s rained a fair amount since we arrived, especially for summer. And yes, according to my friend Patrick of “Van Bun” fame, the Tinder pickings are slim, but this is the closest to Eden that I’ve come in 34 years, and I’m not about to let it go.

Scott Lake
Scott Lake in Sisters, OR. And ditto about “cool-as-fuck” note in pic above.

The Monday Scourge

Sedona

It’s overwhelming when I think about everything I don’t know about the world, to contemplate the cultures I don’t have the time or resources to absorb, the languages I won’t ever learn, the global systems I can’t fully understand with all of their intricate cogs and hierarchies. But I do know one thing: being expected to do anything for eight hours a day is barbaric. American working culture is literally killing us. We sit in our ergonomic chairs for a majority of our waking hours, and for what? To facilitate an economy so complex that professional economists can’t predict what the fuck is going to happen. How is GDP growth really integral to our well-being as a people? There are several countries with low GDP growth that are thriving. Finland’s GDP growth stands at 0.4 percent. That country has one of the best education systems in the world. Norway’s stands at 0.9 percent.  That country was ranked as UN’s best country for living in a 2015 Human Development Report. And for all of our efforts in the US, where do you think we rank in global GDP growth? As of June 2016, we ranked 115th at a modest 2.6 percent. We don’t need to keep wasting resources on developing a nineteenth brand of salad dressing. We are already bursting at the seams with types of salad dressing. We need to channel our power into the thing that counts: raising healthy, environmentally conscious communities. That’s it.

To unpack that, a “healthy” community is one with universal access to a quality education, low crime, high life expectancy, affordable healthcare, tolerance, and leaders held accountable to the public. And the importance of being environmentally conscious is unquestionable. We shouldn’t let our indulgence and over-consumption lead to the exploitation of less developed countries; we shouldn’t let our indulgence and over-consumption jeopardize the future of our children and the planet they will inherit.

Wouldn’t we be better served as a society if we spent less time working and more time with family and friends, pursuing interests outside of the workplace which add value to the world in other ways (e.g., making art, learning an instrument, volunteering with kids, playing sports)? Of course, there are some who are pathologically addicted to their work, spending 10, 12, 16 hours of their day being damn diligent. Think of the professions where this happens: the associate lawyer who scrutinizes documents for the smoking gun to win the case, the bushy tailed consultant living in Dubai who doesn’t realize she’s studying up on weapons of war so she can facilitate American imperialism in the Middle East, the HMO doctor who has exactly 12.5 minutes for each of her 29 patients. While the Japanese have the word “karōshi” to describe death from overwork, English-speakers have yet to come up with a fitting term for this phenomena. I’m not arguing that people shouldn’t work eight hours or more. On the contrary, I think people should work all day long. I’m arguing that doing the same thing for eight hours is barbaric, especially if part of the proceeds from that labor trickle upward as they do in a capitalist economy. We should be diversifying our activities and reprioritizing the things that really matter: socializing, staying active, and spending time with our families to ensure the healthy development of the next generation.

Big Pizzle in Small Town Utah

Barista's pride
Copper Bull, $130,000

My fiancé Jon and I have spent the past eight months exploring the US, deciding which outdoorsy small town we want to call home.  When my friends inquire about the curious American subcultures from our travels, one place sticks out in my mind like a giant bovine erection: welcome to Hurricane, Utah…the gateway to Zion National Park.

Pronounced “Hur-a-kin” by the locals—an effort to mimic the accent of early settlers from Liverpool—this Mormon mecca was established as part of Brigham Young’s program to bring agriculture to southern Utah. It remains today one of the more conservative towns in the state, a refuge for Colorado City defects and a polygamy-friendly community.

Jon and I wandered the aisles of Davis Food & Drug at the perimeter of town, observing a group of four women in dull pastel ankle-length dresses who were discussing the menu for their 15 children. Lone men in collared shirts spoke of “bleeding the beast,” code for collecting welfare to make the US government atone for its sins. Two blonde teenage boys in overalls walked into the grocery store and spoke slowly with glazed eyes. I realized that their dreamy remove wasn’t influenced by booze or pot like normal kids their age: they were simply sheltered to the point of dullness. And everyone in Hurricane spoke this way, as if through the fog of an all-consuming ideology.  Yes, the community was impeccably clean, safe, and replete with law-abiding drivers, but something seemed amiss in the uncritical constitution of this population. That was until we met Steve Ward, of course: the swashbuckling, tattooed owner of Barista’s restaurant.

Stephen Ward

While driving into Hurricane, we hadn’t even realized that we’d passed the most controversial establishment in all of Utah. From the distance of a half-mile, a towering pedestal at the center of town came into sight. As we got closer, we could make out the silhouette of a giant animal. And finally, it became clear. The tallest structure in Hurricane, UT was a marquee with a gargantuan copper sculpture of a bull. And this wasn’t just any bull: this animal donned a magnificent, conical cock with pendulous testicles. Try to imagine this sculpture at the center of a very conservative, very Mormon town. Did I mention that this is across the street from the local high school?

Barista's

We arrived at our AirBnB, and were immediately warned about Barista’s. Mary—our lovely and piously Mormon host—told us to avoid the place at all costs. While giving us a tour of the sparkling apartment adjoined to her home, I took note of maudlin wall-hangings with phrases like “Once in our home, always our friends.” Her graciousness did not extend to Mr. Ward, however, the town’s most infamous business-owner. She cautioned that not only were Barista’s prices astronomical, but Mr. Ward was a brutish misfit who should be ejected from the community. I decided to investigate the place online, and was delighted to have stumbled upon not only an impassioned local controversy, but also upon some of Yelp’s most entertaining reviews in the country.

I kicked off my research with an article from the Spectrum (March 2015), which reported that the citizens of Hurricane had gathered 600 signatures to shut down Barista’s for “unscrupulous business practices and a hostile attitude toward patrons.” Steve Ward countered that the residents of Hurricane were “haters” and he wasn’t going anywhere. He added that, “The reason [the citizens] don’t like the bull is because they know it’s beautiful and amazing.”

I moved on to Yelp’s greatest hits:

  • Michelle N. (Fahy, Ireland): Horrible service. Despicable, disrespectful, jerk of an owner.
  • MK (San Diego, CA): I would rather get anal warts than eat here. Avoid this restaurant at all costs. Food tastes like it was made with horse shit that was fermented in the expired beer that they serve.
  • Lane R. (Salt Lake City, UT): The owner came out of the kitchen and told me to “get the f#%* off his property.” Then he physically threatened me. Weird. Very weird. Do yourself a favor… DON’T

Jamie Kay DeWitt, a local in Hurricane, posted screenshots of some sophomoric exchanges she’d endured from Barista’s Facebook manager:

Barista's Facebook Comments 1

Most curiously, St. George News reported that Barista’s had removed the large member from the copper bull in March of 2015. The young news anchor said solemnly, “The penis has drawn national attention for the controversy stirred over its rather large size.” For the next month, the bull cock was proudly on display atop Barista’s bar counter. My takeaway from that article was Steve’s wife Pam Ward exclaiming, ”We will be here”—and here she banged the table—”until”—bang!—”the day”—bang!—”we die.”

One month later, Death and Taxes (April 2015) declared that the castrated bull had its penis reattached, and Steve Ward proclaimed, “I’ve got people coming from all over the world and they’re like, ‘Where’s the penis?’ I’ve got people coming from North Carolina, I’ve got people from China…I put the dick back up for my customers because they want the dick. My customers like dick.” Even the LA Times (June 2015) got in on the action at this point, and we learned that Ward had spent $130,000 on this irreverent local icon. 

Barista's 2

Needless to say, I resolved to meet Steve Ward while we were in town. I arrived at the restaurant, marveling at the bull’s controversial member from every angle, and was met by this family-friendly marketing at the front door:

Barista's PR stunt

Notice how the picture with young Camile Vera from Baha [sic] California was posted around the same time as the reattachment of Hurricane’s infamous penis in April 2015. I moved to the side of Barista’s and was greeted by a woman in daisy dukes telling me cutely that I must “Enter in rear.”

Barista's %22Enter in Rear%22

I dutifully entered Barista’s rear, and there he was: Steve Ward in the flesh—the veritable don of national controversy. I only wish I’d gotten a better look at the phrases tattooed across his forearms as he sauntered to my table. After examining the beer list, I asked, “How did you secure a license to serve beers over 4 percent?”

Beer selection

For those of you who haven’t been to Utah, they have some unusual liquor laws to accommodate their Mormon ancestry. First, there’s the “Zion curtain,” the omnipresent bar rule which shields vulnerable patrons’ eyes from the process of pouring alcohol. That’s right: in Utah, if alcohol is served, it must be poured behind a barrier. People can drink booze and even order a “side car” of liquor if they want to make a drink a double, but Utah’s citizens aren’t adult enough to witness bartenders in the act of pouring alcohol. Second, beers from Utah are predominantly 4 percent alcohol and under, even more traditionally heady brews such as IPAs.

It seemed a mystery that Barista’s was serving beers over 4 percent, and so I inquired about the licensure. Without cracking a smile, Mr. Ward leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, “I had to take the town mayor into the alley and rough him up a bit.” Not skipping a beat, I cleared my throat and said softly, “I think I read about that exchange in your Yelp reviews.” Mr. Ward laughed like a stoned schoolgirl and took my drink order. Given Barista’s reputation for serving expensive, subpar food, I’d resolved to make this a drinks-only occasion.

There were three other tables sitting in the restaurant. Steve Ward posted up in a central location, scanning the room. He proceeded to shout at my fellow diners across the room,“Hey! Yeah, you three. Do you need anything…? You good? Ok. Cool…What about you over there? Yeah, you… You cool? All right.”

I’d never witnessed this peculiar strategy of customer service. Efficient? Yes. Disruptive to diners? Absolutely.

He returned to my table with a non-apologetic grin and put my first real Utah IPA in front of me. Although it tasted expired, I thanked him politely and asked where he was from originally. He leaned in, his sour breath stinging my eyes, and muttered with a wink, “I’ll tell you later back at my estate…” I abruptly declined the invitation, and Jon came in shortly afterward. Not surprisingly, the dynamic changed once my fiancé was present and Stephen Ward suddenly was all business.

A few weeks after this encounter, I wonder how long Barista’s will endure and whether they’ll be forced again to castrate the copper bull to appease local sensibilities. What Hurricane’s residents didn’t seem to appreciate is that Steve Ward’s transgressions gave that community their bogeyman, a figure against which they could define their own values in opposition. As much as the glassy-eyed blonde teenagers at the grocery store didn’t seem to know life outside of their town, the area was given purpose and meaning in organizing against a local business owner who didn’t fit their mold. More than anything, I wonder what Steve Ward gets out of it. Sure, Hurricane is situated at the base of Zion National Park, and sure, Steve’s family once owned a hotel in town, and sure, Ward claims to be worth $2.8 million as a result of his business (St. George News, “No Filter” April 2015). More than anything, I think Ward gets off on being the local contrarian who is pushing that ossified Mormon community into the realm of 21st century sex and ostentation. Whatever the outcome, he’s leaving an indelible mark on Hurricane, UT and continues to thrive as an antihero. At the very least, he’s ridden his copper bull into my archives of American countercultural history.

Bull dick pride