Protecting our public privacy

I don’t get many responses to posts on the Red Electric, but two readers have responded to last night’s essay about recorded voice ads on the Portland Streetcars.

I appreciate the comments, even though I disagree with them.

Both reflect the reaction I got from the Portland Streetcar Citizen Advisory Committee when I complained about intrusive voice sponsorships of trolley stops.

I have the sense that the committee, and my two readers, wonder what planet I had been living on. Their view seems to be: “Ads are everywhere; get used to it.”

Well, believe it or not, there are societies that respect the privacy of citizens even when they are in public places. Some societies do not treat our need to use public transit as an opportunity to sell us out to commercial interests. And yes, public officials can find other ways to financially support mass transit. In fact, Portland's trolleys are largely supported by parking meter fees.

That said, most transit systems have visual advertising. At least they can be screened out. You don’t have to look at billboards or placard s(you can always read a book), but it is impossible to not hear recorded messages (Wait, maybe that’s why they invented iPods!).

As noted, I also resent the ads' suggestion that publicly, tax-payer financed street intersections are “sponsored” by advertisers.

In the end, the Red Electric’s two readers and the citizens’ advisory committee are politely telling me that I am fighting a battle that has been lost.

So be it. But with the defeat, and those that follow it, go, over time, the idea that there is a “Commons” — places (schools, parks, libraries, streetcars, airports) that belong to we, the People. Beyond that, the notions of government of, by and for the People, of community and the common good are certain to be eroded.

At some point, my critics may, just may, decide to draw the line — and wish that that had done so sooner. Like now.

Meditations on a Streetcar

I took one of those bittersweet Portland Streetcar rides yesterday. The ride was comfortable and on-time, but all along the way, a pre-recorded woman’s voice informed us that the next stop was sponsored by a brewery, a spa, a bank, a real estate broker or a condominium developer.

I’ve complained about this commercial intrusion before, and not just on The Red Electric. I’ve actually testified before the Portland Streetcar Citizens’ advisory board. They nodded politely when I put it to them that public spaces shouldn’t be sold off in exchange for vocal or visual commercial appeals. They made some noises about needing the sponsorship money. I suggested that it might help their cash flow if they simply collected fares etc.

My complaint went nowhere. I think they considered me, at best, a benevolent crank, or, at worst, and misguided fool.

Yesterday, as I trolleyed through the Pearl District bound for NW 23rd, it occurred to me that in this world of global warming, we should be urged to use mass transit. Anything that discourages its use, like THE VOICE, is death to the planet.

Saving the planet shouldn’t come at the price of our being, in effect, turned into a captive audience, fish in a barrel — a “targeted audience” — for marketing/advertising types.

While the disembodied voice went about its paid pronouncements, I rode along trying to stay focused on reading Marcus Aurelius. I’ve kept “Meditations” near at hand recently. It has become my “pocket book” of choice. The Roman emperor’s no-nonsense, stoic perspective is bracing.

As the trolley glided west on NW Northrup and the voice chirped out the next sponsored stop. I just happened to be reading the following:

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

If the cause of the trouble lies in your own character, set about reforming your principles; who is there to hinder you? If it is the failure to take some apparently sound course of action that is vexing you, then why not take it, instead of fretting?

‘Because there is an insuperable obstacle in the way.’ In that case, do not worry; the responsibility for inaction is not yours.

‘But life is not worth living with the thing undone.” Why then, bid life a good-humored farewell; accepting the frustration gracefully, and dying like any other man whose actions have not been inhibited.”

The words obviously spoke to my condition. I had already follow much of the advice, stopping short of “bidding life farewell.”

Not to worry. I’m not planning on throwing myself under the wheels of a streetcar in protest.

No, I have a life-affirming Plan B for ending the “distress” caused by this “external” annoyance: namely, avoiding the trolley and walking, riding a bike or taking a bus.

I wish everyone else would too. Just make sure to tell the advisory committee why.

The sponsored exit

I rode the Portland Streetcar today to get to and from an all-day eye appointment (Don’t ask).

The trolley ride seemed as interminable as the appointment (six ocular pressure tests spaced 90 minutes apart).

Trolley operators, unlike exposed Tri-Met bus drivers, are hermetically sealed in their forward cockpits, kind of like terrorist-plagued airplane pilots. A sign near the door (is it locked?) invites you to talk to them, but not while the trolley is moving. What are you supposed to do, knock on the door? Bring a crowbar?

“Hello? Hell-OOO?”

It’s all so uninviting, I’ve never thought to ask a question.

On the other hand, I’ve listened to Tri-Met bus drivers conduct entire therapy sessions for mildly deranged passengers. How they do this and merge with traffic is beyond me.

So I was surprised today when the trolley driver actually flicked on the intercom and spoke to us. The trolley was stuck in traffic on Lovejoy, and the driver recommended getting out and walking.

As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up.

He informed us that earlier in the rush hour he had been stuck in Lovejoy congestion for 15 minutes.

He also warned that this would be our last opportunity to leave the stuffy car while it was in gridlock.

About 20 of us got out and walked. It felt good.

But it wasn’t the traffic or stale air that made me want to get off; it was the syrupy recorded voice telling me that the trolley stops were sponsored by … what? A Realtor, a brewery, a condominium, a hospital, the PSU Viking football team.

Yes, I know, I’ve ranted about all this before.

Captive transit riders assaulted by piped-in advertising!

Portland Street car turns public intersections into verbal billboards!

Only the deaf could love Portland's trolley!

And, yes, I have complained to the Portland Streetcar “citizens advisory committee.” They treated me as though I had dropped in from Mars, or Halfway or Hebo.

I was told that no one — NO ONE! — had EVER, EVER! complained about the announced sponsorships. Besides, selling these “opportunities” brought in something like 60 grand a year (presumably off-setting fares passengers never pay).

Here, if you scroll down the link, is the price list. Listen up! It costs $500 per month to sponsor a stop and earn access to your captive ears.

My untoward appearance was four years ago. Afterwards, I crawled back in my curmudgeonly hole, muttering, “What will they sponsor next?”

Today I found out, from the Streetcar voice, which belongs to Cheryl Hanson, a local TV news celebrity-turned-trolley-shill. We are supposed to “feel comfortable with” Cheryl, but I don’t— at least not in this context.

What next? At some point in the tranquility between announced stop sponsorships, a computer-cued Cheryl informed us that our VERY CAR was sponsored by Portland General Electric. You know, the local private utility monopoly that bought the naming rights to, and expunged forever the proud name of, Civic Stadium (Yes, that’s another one of my curmudgeonly peeves).

So here I am back in my hole, muttering again: “What will they sponsor next?”

Here’s a clue.

The “voice” didn’t do much else besides announce sponsorships of up-coming stops and the trolley itself, but at one point Cheryl matter-of-factly piped in: “To request a stop, press yellow strip or door button.”

Now there’s a missed opportunity if I ever heard one. It should be worth a grand or two.
“To request this stop, sponsored by Powell’s Bookstore, press yellow strip, sponsored by Nike Sportswear, or door button, brought to you by Starbucks Coffee.”

Who knows, someday Cheryl may send me on my way with “Have a nice day … sponsored by Riverview Mortuary and Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon.”

Helmet Heads, Streetcars and Anita O'Day

Of myriad thoughts and experiences of this day, I’ll share three:

• When you are bald and ride a motor scooter, after removing your helmet, you have no worries about displaying flattened hair, a condition known as “helmet head.” For this I am grateful.

• The Oregonian this morning informs us that City Commissioner Sam Adams wants to expand streetcar service throughout the city. If the streetcar system he has in mind treats its passengers as captive audiences for piped-in commercials announcing city intersections as being “sponsored” by this or that advertiser, I do not wish him well.

• On my two-mile, eight-lap walk around Wilson High School’s track, my iPod in my ear, I am listening to jazz singer Anita O’Day, who died last November in Los Angeles at age 87. I have never paid much attention to “My Ship,” the song she is singing, but because she is singing it, I cling to its words. Anita O’Day is, as they say, “making it her own.” The piano accompanist is spare and rich and sealing the deal. A weakness of digital music is that the names of accompanists vanish, but I suspect the pianist behind O'Day is Oscar Peterson. As you read the lyrics below, imagine Peterson’s lilting, textured piano and O’Day’s dusky alto meting out the words in crafted phrasing. Imagine the music lightening a pace around a track.

My ship has sails that are made of silk
The decks are trimmed with gold
And of jam and spice
There's a paradise in the hold

My ship's aglow with a million pearls
And rubies fill each bin
The sun sits high in a sapphire sky
When my ship comes in

I can wait the years till it appears
One fine day one spring
But the pearls and such
They don't mean much
If there's missing just one thing

I do not care if that day arrives
That dream need never be
If the ship I sing
Doesn't also bring
My own true love to me

City-sanctioned Graffiti

So Commissioner Randy Leonard is on a graffiti eradication toot. Hurray for him!

Strangely, I’ve had a few of my students come to the defense of graffiti. Eradication is censorship etc. After all, this is art, free expression. Besides, those blank spaces are just going to waste.

Private property? Not if can be used to communicate "art" to the public.

Ok, I ask, how about your forehead? Blank space. In full public view. What say I spray-paint over your brow “Bonehead”? All in the spirit of free expression, of course.

End of argument.

Now then, I’d like Commissioner Leonard to consider two other forms of graffiti, both sanctioned by our city officials, including Commissioner Leonard.

The first are overhead wires on well-traveled by-ways. They are certainly as blighting and intrusive as graffiti. Obviously city officials agree, which is why they insist that the Pearl District, South Waterfront and the Lloyd District have underground utilities as part of their municipal tax deferred financing.

Officials should require the same burying of wires and transformers whenever new commercial construction is built on well-traveled transit lines.

You know, places like the new Watershed complex in Hillsdale.

The second city-sanctioned graffiti are the “sponsored” stop announcements on the Portland streetcars. Yes, auditory graffiti. Intrusive, offensive, embarrassing, deceitful and absurd.

Intrusive because they can’t be avoided.

Offensive because in order to use public transit, well, we can’t avoid them.

Embarrassing because out-of-town visitors and tourists, drawn to the trolleys, must find the voice-activated commercials tacky. Unworthy of the City of Roses.

Absurd and deceitful because the actual messages claim that public, taxpayer-built and maintained intersections are “sponsored by” this or that business or institution.

Come on.

I rode the trolley today and concluded that, frankly, some of these “sponsors” should be ashamed of themselves. I’m thinking in particular of the Portland Art Museum, the “Portland State Vikings” (who, pray tell, are they? The student body? The administration? The football team?) and the Portland State Bookstore.

There’s no way these institutions “sponsor” the stop intersections, and they know it.

So Commissioner Leonard, AKA duct-tap Randy, should look up at the wires and listen up to the trolley plugs. There is plenty of graffiti that he and his colleagues could clean up with a simple roll-call vote.