William Clinton is Portland’s resident curmudgeon, and this brief pamphlet is a multi-segmented, grammatically-flawed diatribe which condemns several facets of local and national culture. Clinton doesn’t care much for hipsters, anarchists, psychiatrists, Barack Obama, Tommy Wiseau or Portland itself, and he directs heaps of contempt and derision on each of these targets. In a Maddoxian sort of vein, he aims his ire unsparingly, proposing new mottos for Portland (“A place for vegan bicyclists to feel oppressed”) or depicting hipsters “regal[ing] each other with the same tired tales of 19-year-old girls deflowered, drugs quaffed, parties attended, and the relevancy of Pabst.” I’ll admit I had several good laughs throughout the course of this merciless lampoon, though I couldn’t help but imagine Clinton as an embittered scene outcast tetchily typing away from a rented basement, cackling proudly with each new sentence. Nowhere is this sentiment better verbalized than in one of his patented Portland taglines: “Portland: Watch other people get laid like crazy…. as you live in celibate misery.” And so it all begins to make sense…. (Michael Tau)
Zine, Issue 1, William Clinton PO Box 6031, Portland, OR, 97228, USA