By David Krogh
Secret Portland, OR: A Guide To The Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure is a whimsical and quirky look at Portland and its surrounding area. Author Jeff Brawn is an established illustrator and mixed media artist with a focus of where “cult figures and the used-to-be-famous are the stars of their own pinball and bubblegum machines.” Originally from the Midwest (Chicago and St. Louis areas), Brawn and his family moved to Portland in 2018, where he started a new art studio.
Brawn described his work, saying, “I refer to my art as Underdog Underground. Supporting and character actors are the celebrities.” It just so happened that an art buyer of Brawn’s worked at Reedy Press (the publisher for his book). Based on Brawn’s own whimsical look at art, the buyer asked him if he would like to write this book. “You have to say yes to things if you want them to keep working.”
Secret Portland reads almost like a book describing Ripley’s Believe It Or Not exhibits. It is not just about weird or interesting places but also about people and happenings. The book is easy to read and will leave even native Portlanders wondering where the author discovered all of these interesting and strange tidbits.
Listing to a few examples of the book’s contents does not really do the book justice. However, did you know that Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and so many other cartoon characters, attended Lincoln High School? (And so did Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons.) And in SE Portland there is a semi-private “Lincoln Street Kayak and Canoe Museum,” located out of a former business and residence. (You must contact the owner if you wish to visit.)
Other interesting topics in the book include “Zelda The Bulldog” (a statue outside of The Heathman Hotel), “Monkey Puzzle Trees” (dating from the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition), the Alibi Tiki Lounge (which Brawn states is “The Second-Oldest Tiki Bar in the Country,” includes karaoke and has a fantastic neon sign to boot), the history of the Benson Bubblers, a “Simpsons Tour” and dozens of other sites, information and situations.
Brawn was asked if Portland is really that weird or if that’s just how his book depicts it. “I do think Portland is weird, but in a really great way. It isn’t just being strange for the sake of being strange. It’s a matter of people feeling okay to express themselves here. And perhaps there’s something to the theory that we oddballs moved west in search of acceptance until we ran out of land.”
Brawn also said he had met several interesting people while researching the book, including “Una The Professional Mermaid, club owner Strawberry Pickle and artist/curator Jim Stewart, who created the Zymoglyphic Museum.”
As to the most bizarre (or interesting) of his discoveries Brawn stated, “The Zymoglyphic Museum would have to be up there.” The most surprising, though, was Vanport. At one time “the second largest city in Oregon, and it was eliminated overnight” during a massive flooding event in 1948.
Brawn had a long list of other sites he would have liked to have included in the book except for COVID-19. “The biggest problem was that businesses were closing so fast during quarantine. The Roxy closed one day before my book went to print, for instance, and I had to swap it out for something else overnight. In the end, I rewrote the book several times and eventually eliminated most retail, food and drinking establishments.”
Both his site descriptions and his artwork are literally gushing with comedy and cheerfulness. Brawn stated he likes “playing with ridiculous subject matter, dripping with nostalgia. I grew up a comedy nerd, memorizing every comedy album I could find from George Carlin and Bob Newhart.” Brawn added that he would have loved to have become a stand-up comedian, “but I suffered terribly from stage fright, so that was out. Now I sell art to comedians like Jimmy Kimmel!”
Asked why he didn’t include any of his own illustrations in the book, Brawn indicated it needed to be “a celebration of Portland. In the end, I did sneak in an illustration I did of a vintage Portland Pickle’s baseball card and a goofy Rip Taylor portrait that says ‘rip city!’”
Secret Portland, OR: A Guide To The Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure is available online from Reedy Press (reedypress.com) and at local stores including Powell’s (multiple outlets), Presents of Mind (3633 SE Hawthorne Blvd.) and Memento PDX (3707 SE Hawthorne Blvd).
More on Jeff Brawn and his art at jeffbrawn.com.
