Tonight I went to a free orientation at MetroEast Community Media, one of five public access stations in the Portland metropolitan area. You have to do orientation in order to take their classes on editing and camera/studio work, etc. We have satellite here and not cable, unfortunately, so I can’t watch public access TV, but a significant portion of my time in Boise was spent checking out what was on the only public access channel there, TVCTV. It was primarily either terrible shows, boring shows, or hilariously bad shows.
The rates for the classes are ridiculous, too. It’s $25 to take as many classes as you want for a year. That plus a yearly $50 producer’s fee, and I can do whatever I want. I can check out cameras, I can produce a show in one of the two studios (TVCTV only has one studio — MetroEast’s studios are actually professional looking), I can check out micro-mobile gear (basically a mobile directing station and a bunch of cameras). I can help with other shows. I can make my own videos with the field cameras. I can do it all.
Needless to say, I’m pretty stoked. My plan is to check out cameras and record no-budget music videos for my songs, quirky YouTube stuff in the style of Julia Nunes (potential adjectives include: adorable, funny, amazing, and Julia I have a crush on you). I’ll have to use their editing booths until I can afford a new computer (my brother has Adobe Premiere on his comp but he would never have time to let me use it). But yeah. That’s my plan. And if I get through the right classes quickly enough, I might put up videos for the Twelve EP project. Thinking about it.
Getting on the MAX at nearly 10pm was kind of weird, though. I’ve never had a problem with people, even late at night — meaning, I’ve never been attacked, verbally or physically, and no one has mugged me or anything. Sometimes it surprises me; I tend to wear a long topcoat that looks kind of expensive (and was at the time, thanks financial aid!), and I wouldn’t be surprised if people thought I had money. Of course, if I did have money, I probably wouldn’t be riding the MAX home at ten at night.
There were some interesting people on the train ride back, though. First off, MetroEast is located on the last stop of the blue line, meaning it’s technically in Gresham, OR and not Portland. So when I came back the train was just sitting there, waiting for the ride back. It was kind of weird. Plus there was no one around, which meant I was steeped in silence for a moment while I waited for ten minutes.
But anyway, interesting people. There were two guys, one of whom apparently sold weed, and he was lamenting in a very explicit way about how he just got robbed — some guy stole $60 bucks from him or something like that. Then two ditzy teenaged girls came up, one of them saying, “It smells like weed over here.” They proceeded to ask the two guys if they had weed. The seller wanted money, they didn’t have any, they played the “cute” card and the guy said, “Fuck that!” The girls left shortly after.
This guy was Asian, but he talked like a straight up gangsta (to use the parlance of the day). He even said the dreaded N word (the way black people say it, not the derogatory white way) when referencing a friend of his. “He’s my nigga,” specifically, is what he said, to which his white friend nodded appreciatively.
So to those of you who think that all Asians are studious and good at math, I present this kid, who is a straight up O.G. (and probably studious once he gets home to his parents).
Then there was this other guy who walked in, sat at the front of the train (where the rest of us were), and proceeded to pout some liquor into a plastic Pepsi bottle. Just right there, in plain sight. He didn’t drink it, but he did move to another part of the train, where I assume he drank it.
Jeez, and I get worried when I ride the MAX without valid fare.
I have yet to see people having sex on the MAX, but where there’s a will, there’s a way. I’ll be making a lot of late night trips to Gresham, so it’s only a matter of time.
