KmikeyM

BACKGROUND

Kenton, a neighborhood in North Portland, was a company town built by the Swift Meat Packing Company in 1911. The area is most famous for the large statue of Paul Bunyan. The industrial past of Kenton has created a legacy of surrounding warehouses and autobody shops.

"Downtown" Kenton is a stretch of about four blocks running south on N. Denver from N. Interstate.

TRANSPORTATION

The MAX yellow line stops in front of the statue, and the I-5 is only a few blocks away. The neighborhood streets are great for biking, with both Interstate and Denver having painted bike lanes.

NEIGHBORHOOD

Kenton Park contains a basketball court, two baseball fields, and plenty of open space. A post office is located a block off Denver. Just north is PIR, the Expo Center, Heron Lakes Golf Course, Portland Meadows, and just north of all that is Hayden Island. There is a nearby Fred Meyer on Interstate, as well as numerous coffee shops. The four blocks of downtown Kenton seem to be in a current state of development.

The Kenton Neighborhood Association (KNA) seems to actually use their website.

The official borders of Kenton are formed by North Portland Harbor (the channel of the Columbia River that separates the area from Hayden Island), Interstate 5 to the east, North Lombard Street to the south and the western border follows North Portland Road, North Columbia Boulevard, and North Chautauqua Boulevard.

DISJECTA

Located at 8371 N Interstate, Disjecta is a 10,000 square foot arts building that was originally a bowling alley. Run by Bryan Suereth, 36, Disjecta was founded in 2000 and in currently in its 3rd location. The current location opened in July of 2008.

In 2003, Suereth and Gavin Shettler launched "The Modern Zoo." They then formed the non-profit Portland Art Center, but Suereth left and PAC eventually folded.

In a November 2009 Willy Week article, when asked about the financial future of Disjecta, Bryan stated, "Are we guaranteed to exist at this same time next year? Hell no."

Disjecta's Board of Directors includes Meagan Atiyeh, damali ayo, Beth Gates, Brad Malsin, Marshall Runkel, and Kristin Wolff. The Board of Advisors includes Sam Gould, Matt McCormick, Stephanie Snyder, and Mark Woolley among others.

Disjecta has a small number of studio spaces they rent out, including the offices of The Sentinel, which recently announced they will be closing down in March of 2010. The Sentinel, run by Cornelius Swart, is published by SydHonda Media, which is a sponsor of the Portland Media Lab.

Steve and I have started a podcast called The Bright Future of Tobacco. We just posted our first episode, titled The Weakness In Our Value Chain Was The Quality Of Our Core Product, and I have a few show notes for anyone who wants to follow up on what we discuss.

The Domino's Pizza Pizza Turnaround results in pizza that we determine is only 15% improved. However, the stock price (NYSE:DPZ) has improved about 27%.

You should watch Big River Man, a documentary about Martin Strel. (Website, Amazon, Netflix)

If you like beer, you should buy a copy of Greatest Sips by the Hot Knives (Website, Publication Studio)

It might be time to rethink the value of metacritic.com.

Sweet Teddy P.

Mike owes Steve $155 because he is bad at NBA bets.

As predicted, "Things are looking bleak for the roller coaster."

There will be no April Fools' Day in 2010 and Nicole Richie will ultimately win Project Runway.

We enjoy Butera Royal Vintage Cigars from Rich's Cigar Store. The name "Butera" is from Michael Butera, who is a well known tobacco pipe designer who has licensed his name to these fine cigars.

We hope you enjoy the first episode of The Bright Future of Tobacco.

For the past 30 days I have maintained a vegetarian diet after reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. Natalie Portman wrote in The Huffington Post that "Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals changed me from a twenty-year vegetarian to a vegan activist."

Since then I have had discussions with many people about the various pros and cons of eating meat. Should I maintain a vegetarian diet?

Many shareholders are vegetarian. Some are ethical omnivores, and some are generally careless about what they eat. Is there a diet that adds value to KmikeyM? As the adage says, "you are what you eat." Should the KmikeyM enterprise be fed, if you were, by the various ill effects of modern American farming and its hormone-laden meat industry, or by the energy derived from natural photosynthesis? Food is fuel, and the machine of KmikeyM must continue to run unburdened for many years to come.

On the other hand, food is also social. The social ramifications of a limited diet can mean not sitting at the table of beef-eating titans of industry. That is a seat that offers many opportunities. On a more personal level there are meals where it might be impolite to invite a non-meater (like a pig roast, or a wing party). I myself have considered the dietary restrictions of guests when planning a small dinner party.

It may be counterproductive to consider this a dichotomous conflict of physical and social value; there may be unforeseen ill effects in either directions. For example, vegetarianism may be the norm in various circles (artistic, ecologically-conscious), or be seen as a sign of personal strength and ethical values, both superior business attributes. At the same time, a poorly-planned vegetarian diet may be detrimental to health. However, this is a brass-tacks decision and brass-tacks decisions require hard-lined arguments.

Vote here.

Discuss here.

We just announced the Hot Knives' book GREATEST SIPS, which is a collection of 21 essays on various beers written by Alex and Evan. The creation of this book has been a long journey. I'm much more accustomed to creating things for the web, and the shift to creating a physical item was full of all new problems and issues and considerations.

I had to learn Adobe's InDesign. That program is not intuitive AT ALL. It's like a secret club. Now, after a few months of using it I feel like I can open and do small edits. If learning to use a gun was as complicated as InDesign I'd be a level where I know just enough to not kill myself. Everyone around me is in SEVERE danger, but I won't shoot myself. Maybe.

We really rallied the Urban Honking team on this book in a way I don't think we've done before. The Hot Knives wrote it of course, and while I did the layout I had a lot of help from Flint and Jona, Rebecca stepped in with some design and artwork, Thomas edited the shit out of it, Steve compiled the .zip file of music... I'm sure I'm forgetting some people because for a while I was just bouncing around everyone I know getting help.

If you want to read about beer it's just $15 and being printed and sold by our friends at Publication Studio.

Domino's Pizza (NYSE:DPZ) claims to have remade their pizza with a new focus on making food that actually tastes good. They are calling it a Pizza Turnaround. The problem is that while the pizza may be changed, the pizza is still bad.

via asylum.com

I gave a short presentation this past weekend at Research Club, which was held at Tribute Gallery. My talk was entitled, "Let's Get Rich and Make Art Together" and was the history and current operations of being a publicly traded person.

I bought a new laser pointer, and I think there will be video of the event soon.

Also, I'm heading to Los Angeles, California on fact-finding mission on the 25th. If anyone has any must-see places please let me know.

I'm in week seven of my betting $5 with Steve on every NBA game. I recently won $90.00 in one week, which puts me $25 up on Steve. Here is a graph of the past seven weeks showing my record:

I've also been betting Curt $10 on every Atlanta Falcons game. This has been less of a roller coaster than the NBA and more of a slow dive into debt.

Between the two that puts me at down $5 today.

In a piece for ARCADE I am briefly mentioned in Stephanie Snyder's explanation of Suddenly:

Typically, we remove ourselves from what we find unappealing. What is your normative anesthetic? We seek to interfere with this. And what is the difference between this and that?--Once, one, perhaps, a combatant will want to fuck you. That's a statement. That's worth voting for. Whether or not suddenly artist Mike Merrill should vasectomy himself, Mike asks his shareholders to vote on that, to know that's worth voting for.

You can pick up ARCADE at Powell's or Rich's Cigar Store. The issue looks like this:

Today we're launching the Urban Honking Freshman Scholarship Fund. Well, it's more like we're pre-launching it. We want to give $1000 to someone who is heading to college, but before we start asking for applications from students, we need to raise $1000.

After we get the funds we'll create an application and then put the word out and then review the apps and then give someone a pile of money before fall of 2010. Then that person will let us know how their Freshman year is going, and then we'll do it again the next year. College!

(Discussion is on UHX)