My room turns out to have an awesome view of the street, a very sunny corner on Broadway. A couple little girls were playing hoola hoop for a while. I watched them while I had breakfast. A larger group of children has now gathered and are chasing candy being thrown in the street. Many chairs have been set up with pieces of paper stuck to them---reserved seating.
The parade is still a ways away. I have it playing on the local Fox affiliate. The Rose Court is on television right now. The queen was just crowned---an uber-geek chick with butch hair and glasses. You couldn't get more Portland 2013 than that. She looks like every Lesbian's dream.
I can hardly wait until they get to the hotel. This is so much fun.
10:30 am
The parade finally arrives on Broadway. Like any good Portland parade, it is led by the rabble. The most disorganized part leads the pack---the people's Grand Floral Walk, in which anyone can participate.
This is the Marxist apotheosis of America. All must be inverted. All must be turned upside down. All must be leveled and destroyed so that the New Version can be built that is finally fair and just, and in which no one is subjected to the terror of being left out.
10:37 am
Still the people's march, I think. Finally what appears to be an organized marching band appears, although it appears to be a parody of that kind of band. Nevertheless it's not bad as music. Behind them, dozens of people carrying Tibetan flags.
No roses yet. Come to think of it, I haven't seen any at all, even images of them, since I've arrived. Have to make a point of that: find the rose in the Rose City!
10:46 am
A long lull now with no parade. It seems the Tibetans were the climax of the people's Grand Floral Walk. The chlidren are bored and have gone back to doing cartwheels in the street, which is covered with much chalk graffiti in the manner of a a suburban driveway.
10:52 am
Still no parade. The children have organized a hoola-hoop rolling game in the middle of the street.
11:16 am
Salmon and Broadway has returned to its pre-people's march state, but with more chaotic vigor, resembling a street festival. A man in a squid mask rides a bike selling cotton candy. Middle-aged women in t-shirts and shorts dance to the Village People being pumped on the loud speakers.
On television, where coverage the parade has continued of course, it is clear from everything I've seen that there is absolutely nothing "floral" anymore about the Grand Floral Parade. I haven't seen a single flower of any kind, let alone a rose (I assume the queen was carrying at least one rose, but I didn't even notice frankly---I'll check when she gets here in person with her sexy hipster haircut and nerd glasses).
11:27 am
Gap between the parades now almost an hour long. Street crowd is restless. On television Portland Fire and Rescue horse-driven truck is covered with roses. I guess I'm satisfied. Someone is still into the old tradition.
11:29 am
On television, the Golden Rose Award float arrives, by Lifeflight, a medical helicopter service. At first I am gratified that there are flowers around the helicopter on the float, and then I realize how measly it looks, resembling the bouquet section of an Albertson's grocery store. I turn away in disgust.
11:32 am
Finally the real parade arrives. The Portland Police trucks comes through with sirens. Then a Ford Focus with a smattering of roses on the hood resembling a funeral. Boy Scouts carry an unadorned banner "Spirit Mountain Casino Grand Floral Parade" following by four police on horseback with a few roses in their saddles.
11:46 am
The thick of the parade, and some floats I didn't see on television, with actual flowers on them. It's clear the old ways still survive in patches, but it almost seems like a homage to the theme of flowers and roses, rather than part of the parade itself.
11: 50 am
Almost missed the queen and her court while writing that last update. Thankfully they stopped right into front of the hotel for quite a while and I got a good luck at their float. Plenty of roses along the sides, to be sure, but not really anything more than you see at any other parade with a royal court like that.
I watch as the float pulls away down the street, the arms of the princesses waving in soft feminine fashion semi-randomly together like tentacles of a soft undersea creature.
11:54 am
The princesses were proceeded by a rathern decent marching band. The one after them appears to be another college or high school. One of the sousaphone players has adorned the the bell of his instrument with roses. NOW THAT"S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!
12:07 pm
Grand Marshall comes by, with a few flowers on the hoold. That's OK---Grand Marshall's car can be subdued compared to rest of parade.
After that, the PG&E Power Party Float, with enough flowers to pass. Slowly the parade begins to feel slightly floral. The float lingers blasting Disco Inferno. A tall blonde girl in go-go boots dances to the song using the same steps we learned in elementary school in the 1970s. I'm entranced her, wishing I could get to know her. Alas she moves on down the street.
12:12 pm
With great fanfare arrives the University of Oregon cheerleading squad, perhaps the real princess court, since when it comes to college cheerleaders, we don't yet f- around with feminine beauty standards. They are the most finely sculptured young female bodies produced by the gymnasiums of the state supported institution. Behind them is the wagon carrying other U of O kids and the Duck mascot.
Not a single damn flower on any of them, from cheerleader to mascot. No hint of the slightest thing floral. I guess they want to remind us they aren't the agricultural school. We don't do that plant growing thing! Grade: You FAIL.
12:17 pm
Forgot to mention several excellent rodeo queens on horseback, including one from Canby, that went by. By and large, it is among this contingent that you see the most consistent evidence that the parade has a floral theme (aside: got to visit a Western store in Kalispell, Mont. that seems to specialize in producing rodeo queens. Their portraits are on the wall).
The Oregonian float arrives. A decent effort, I suppose, but still seems to me like just raided the flower shop in the lobby of the office tower right before the parade and loaded it up with whatever was on hand.
12:25 pm
Television coverage has become an infomercial while I wasn't paying attention. Guess it's over on the East side. Probably another hour here at least. The only disadvantage so far I've found in being this late in the route was that the "world famous" dance squad from some high school in Beaverton at the beginning of the parade was clearly tuckered out by the time they got here.
12:28 pm
A solitary traditional-gown-and-tiara princess comes by in a tiny cart pulled by a tiny pony, all festooned with roses. It's the little things like this that make the parade worth watching.
12:33 pm
A troop of cowgirls on horseback, climaxed by a triplet in white outfits and with saddles festooned with huge heaps of roses. It is perhaps the only time in the parade when the decoration harkens to any sense of an abundance of flowers.
12:38 pm
Wells Fargo Bank entry arrives, a horse-driven stagecoach with roses attached along the top of the stage. It shows that even a small touch, in the right place, can highlight the floral theme if done correctly.
12:45 pm
The Portland Fire and Rescue truck that had admired on television finally shows up. It looks even better in person. The shiny boiler on the wagon seems to erupt with roses out the top. Behind them is the Army National Guard float, a traveling musical stage, with soldiers in battle camo under canopy. Around the bases are bouquets of roses. It too is well done. When the float is military in nature like this, it takes only a small number of roses to evoke the floral theme.
12:51 pm
As I write the last entry, a high school marching band goes by. It takes me a minute to realize that they are playing one of the University of Texas fight songs. I lean out the window and give them the Hook 'em Horns sign. Old habits die hard.
12:55 pm
More princesses, in purple and gold, wearing white gloves, and surrounded by just about the right amount of roses. Their arms are moving together in a coordinated royal wave. All around them, people in random costumes milling around in various directions. Seems a perfect image for the parade as a whole.
They are followed by the high school band from Battle Ground, Washington (who unlike most bands actually carried a banner identifying themselves). Wearing military-style dress, they are very good and march in tight, well-drilled formations under the close watch of the director at their side. I wonder if they practice harder at these things because of the name of their high school.
12:59 pm
Now some of the fun off-beat entries arrive---the Oregon Trail Interpretative Center folks in covered wagons and costumes (guess they wanted to emphasize that they didn't yet have flowers back then), followed by the Portland Tri-Met double decker bus, and then a troop of Segway riders in red jackets and with roses on the Segway (another case of small touches highlighting the theme).
1:05 pm
A group of a hundred people carrying the flags of all nations, walking loosely, arrives. It seems like the people's march again, but now at least the number of flags of all nations is equal to number of Tibetan flags I've seen.
Behind them, fittingly, the Chinese dancers---quite entertaining. Behind them arrives by far the most floral float of the parade, by the Sister City association, sponsored evidently by a city in Taiwan (given the flags). It has an oriental theme and is covered in flowers but decidedly does NOT look like a grocery store display. It is the only float in the parade that one could even consider being in the Pasadena Rose Parade. The foreigners and the rodeo queens still think this is about flowers.
1:17 pm
The Chinese float is followed by a Chinese marching band, then dragon dancers (got to go to the Dragon Boat races later). Then a group of brightly colored Mexicans, then the Vietnamese community. The Vietnamese have a float that is covered with flowers. The design is not to my personal taste, but it has thought in it, and much effort.
1:20 pm
Hundreds of Boy Scouts in uniform arrive, many of them carrying American flags. Slowly the U.S.A. gains ground on Tibet in the flag representation competition, with Mexico in third.
The competition ends with the marching band that follows them---a high school band in U of O colors playing Louie, Louie (one of the state songs, I think). In the wake, a PG&E lightbulb mascot presides over a crew in bright jackets collecting trash. Police cars with loudspeakers warn the remaining dwindled crowd (at its height at the end of the people's march, I think) that crossing the street entails "extreme danger." Now a dozen street sweepers, almost a parade unto themselves take over, drowning out all music from down the street as they round the corner onto Broadway. The parade is done.
My car is imprisoned in the garage until three p.m. but I have no intention of moving it anyway. It has been great fun lingering here at my perch in the Heathman, making coffee in the French press they provide you, but I believe it's time to finally go down to street level and enjoy the day outside.
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