Look, I’m not half the writer NYMag.com/Vulture.com’s Dave Holmes is, so if you really want the low down on American Idol, check his recaps. Other than his crush on Philip Philips and his love of Elise Testone (she who could bear no criticism), I pretty much agree with him right down the line. (And what the hell happened to MTV’s Jim Cantiello?)

But I’ve got a few comments.

First, I finally figured who Steven Tyler (STyler in our house) looks like: that aging hippie woman at the local co-op, who spends hours a week shopping and socializing with the staff and wants to tell the young produce guy all about her wild days on the commune or her latest colonic recipe. I mean, he looks exactly like that woman. (I spent the better part of 10 years working produce at natural food stores, so I speak as an authority on this.)

Second, let me just say that Jimmy Iovine is the refreshing voice of truth in contrast to all the fluffy nonsense spouted by the judges. STyler, JLo and Randy Jackson seem so hopped up on goof balls all the time, it’s a shock — a shock! — when they say something critical, and even more of a shock when their criticism is actually accurate.

I don’t always agree with Jimmy’s analysis, but he’s the pro, with real actual insight into what makes an artist a star. He criticized 16-year-old phenom Jessica Sanchez for “pulling the rabbit out of the hat” too much (i.e. overusing her growl she started developing at the age of 7), but went on to reveal that she’s basically already got a contract with his Interscope label (along with fellow top-three contenders Joshua Ledet and Philip Philips).

So Jimmy, speaking of leaving the rabbit in the hat, what’s the deal with signing the top three to Interscope contracts when the grand prize of this whole contest is… a contract with Interscope?

At this point you may be asking yourself: What the hell is Steve doing paying all this attention to American Idol? Yeah, I’m asking myself that too. In three hours a week, there’s about ten minutes of entertainment, the rest being fluffed-up group numbers, ginned-up reality TV drama, embedded Coke and Ford ads, and listless (and/or overwrought) performances by past Idol losers (and a couple winners).

But I’m funny that way. If I’ve committed to half an hour of a crappy film, I’m in it to the end. We’re a few weeks from the Idol finale (featuring that aging hippie lady and her rock band Aerosmith, and probably not Mark Anthony and Sheila E., darn it), so I can’t quit now. We’re not going to the live show this year, however.

You gotta draw the line somewhere.

This is what happens when the new ice rink management gets a liquor license… no more BYOB for beer league! It’s $3 a bottle at the snack bar, boys!

After pickup hockey today, I took a shower and was toweling off with my back to the shower. I was alone in the locker room. The shower turned back on suddenly. Pretty sure it’s just the crappy plumbing at the old dump, but it kind of freaked me out a little. Maybe it was a ghost of beer leagues past, coming back to haunt the joint.

Now that they’re raking it in with the beer sales, maybe they can rehab the showers. Just sayin.

I’ve maintained a two-year public silence on Portland Public Schools, after devoting countless hours to speaking out and finally deciding to get my kids out of harm’s way. Not everybody has that option, of course, which is why recent events cause me such grief.

The school board’s decision to close two North Portland schools is deja vu all over again. Here’s a little history lesson for the board members who evidently don’t know — or don’t give a shit. (Dates are approximate; I don’t feel like looking them up. Feel free to leave corrections in comments.)

• 1982: Harriet Tubman Middle School founded as part of a comprehensive desegregation plan pushed by the Black United Front. Middle schools, you see, draw from a wider population area than K-8s, reduce segregation, and allow for more curriculum with less money. Who knew it could be so easy?
• 1990: Oregon voters pass Measure 5. Universal art, music and PE are cut in PPS. Schools with adequate enrollment and fundraising (i.e. rich schools) are able to maintain some of these “enrichments.”
• 1996: Oregon voters pass Measure 47, further limiting school funding.
• 1997: Oregon voters pass Measure 50, reiterating their desire to continue choking off school funding.
• Early 2000s: A student transfer lottery is instituted. Superintendent Vicki Phillips embraces a free market enrollment policy and encourages schools to compete with one another for enrollment. As Portland’s black neighborhoods gentrify and get whiter, their schools are drained of enrollment and funding as white students transfer out. Phillips also decides to close most middle schools in poor neighborhoods, and revert to the K-8 model that was done away with by the 1982 desegregation plan (and which costs more while delivering less). Tubman middle school is closed, and the Jefferson cluster is left with no middle school. Facing budget cuts, the Phillips administration closes many schools, especially in poor and minority neighborhoods, and the Neighborhood Schools Alliance rises up to oppose her. Future school board member Ruth Adkins emerges as a strong voice in defense of neighborhood schools. Jefferson, Madison, Roosevelt and Marshall High Schools are sliced up into rigidly divided “small schools” pushed by corporate philanthropists (notably the Gates foundation).
• 2007: As part of the Jefferson re-re-design into Gates “small schools,” Harriet Tubman is re-opened as the all-girls Young Women’s Leadership Academy.
• Late 2000s: Vicki Phillips departs for a job with Gates and is replaced by Carole Smith. It’s become painfully obvious that the conversion from middle schools to K-8s has suffered a catastrophic lack of planning. Schools like Humboldt, already hurting for enrollment, are unable to offer anything resembling a comprehensive middle grade program. The district’s response: these schools must increase enrollment. But who wants to send their kid to a school that offers so much less than other schools? The district ignores the writing on the wall and refuses to re-examine its ill-fated decision to abandon middle schools in poor neighborhoods.
• 2012: A majority on the school board, including erstwhile neighborhood schools advocate Ruth Adkins, votes to close Humboldt and Tubman due to low enrollment. Converting Tubman back to a comprehensive middle school and Jefferson K-8s back to K-5 is not even considered. Balancing enrollment (e.g. via reform of the transfer policy that drains enrollment from Humboldt) is also not considered. Rebuilding Whitaker Middle School (as was once promised, years ago) is definitely not considered. Apparently the current superintendent and school board are completely ignorant of the 1982 desegregation plan — not to mention completely unwilling to address the inequities wrought by their open transfer enrollment policy — and believe poor and minority students can learn better if we close their neighborhood schools.

This isn’t just about closing a couple more schools in North Portland. This is part and parcel of a continuing history of institutional racism in Portland Public Schools. Humboldt and the Young Women’s Leadership Academy were set up to fail several years ago. There was never a model in place to support a comprehensive middle grade program in K-8 schools, especially those with enrollment drained by the self-reinforcing death spiral of the open enrollment system (the majority of students in Humboldt’s catchment area — 57% — transfer out). And there was never a funding plan for the “small schools” model once the Gates grants ran out; the YWLA is the last one standing.

This week’s board vote was the inevitable outcome of bad leadership decisions over the past decade (ya can’t say we didn’t tell ya so), and official indifference to issues of race and poverty (even as the district makes much of its “equity” and racial sensitivity programs).

I realize it’s none of my damn business now, having moved out of the district two years ago in disgust. Except it’s everybody’s business how we educate our children, and it’s everybody’s responsibility to speak up about injustice when they see it taking place.

And this, my friends, is some serious injustice being dropped on the heads of North Portland’s children.

This is more like it for spring. Trilliums in bloom.

Mushrooms popping up.

Snakes catching rays.

Bullfrogs on the lily pond.

The most snow we’ve seen at the new place in the two years we’ve been here… and it’s on March 22!