If you’ve been in Salem in a while, you probably have met Paul in any number of settings. At a Matthew Price band concert, walking the streets of NoMaSoFa (North of Market South of Fairgrounds). He more than kind of stands out, in a good way.

This column reeks of “My Postman is better than your postman” one-uppmanship. I’m a contender by nature, what can I say. But I think it might be my favorite column yet, since it is evocative of place while championing a local hero.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about place, specifically, about this place. Not so much what it has to offer, but about the people I’ve met here who I interact with every day. I used to think getting used to a place was about seeing the same house of horrors front yard pop up every season. But increasingly, I’m thinking it is more about seeing the same downtrodden, sunburned guy on the side of the road at 17th and market.Okay, that sounds like a pretty bad morning. It’s also about running into the same folks over and over again as you go about your life.  When I came here, I obsessed quite a bit about what Salem does have or doesn’t have. Who cares? Salem has some really great people.

The more you interact with people in your community, the more you care about lifting them up in return. I think one of my goals for this next year is going to be to make economic decisions that lift up my neighbors, as much as I can. I’m starting with some hand-delivered mail.

See the guy in the hat? That’s my husband, Adam. As you can tell from the pic, he’s covered in food from caring for a toddler, but he’s a pretty happy guy. That’s the face I’ll be thinking about tonight when I hear him through Internet radio hosting a Salem FM show at 7:00 p.m. (You can listen to it directly through the website).

Adam has been going through his gargantuan music collection and culling some of his favorites down to just an hour for the past several weeks and has grimaced and quaked, furrowed and hermmmed making a list of music from his collection worth talking about.

It’s been fun to watch. The pressure! The pleasure! Songs making it or breaking it at the flick of a finger!

Angry white guy music is delightfully absent.

The most amazing thing has happened as Adam has made this list. He’s started talking with me, articulating in classic Adam exactitude why he likes the songs he has chosen.  It’s been like All Songs Considered without the bristling pedantry.

Adam will make you change your perspective about Florence and the Machine. When you hear the Johhny Cash song come on you will imagine him bouncing baby Dash to sleep to it, over and over, in Dash’s fourth month of life.  You will race to the computer to download Frontier Psychiatrists by the Avalanche. You will demand nothing less than Mystikal’s Bouncin’ Back at the start of your days.

At the end of this month, Adam and I are celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary and ten years together. We’ve seen sixteen countries, lived in five places, sheltered two cats, given life to one charming boy. As one of my friends once put it, we’re older and we have more stuff. Check him out tonight and you’ll understand why the sentence I say most about my amazing husband is: “He likes to have a conversation.”

UPDATE: Here’s the playlist he introduced.

1. Jude – Rick James
2. Gabriel Rios – Broad Daylight
3. Anna to the Infinite Power  – When the World Ends
4. Florence And The Machine – Kiss With A Fist
5. The Roots – “thought at work.”
6. Mystikal – Bouncin Back
7. Elbow – Picky Bugger
8. Mike Doughty – Language Barrier
9. The National – Fake Empire
10. Regina Spektor – Blue Lips
11. Bob Dylan – Tomorrow Is A Long Time
12. Johnny Cash – God’s Gonna Cut You Down
13. Ben Harper /Blind Boys Of Alabama – Satisfied Mind
14. Puscifer – The Mission (feat. Milla Jovovich)
15. Todd Snider – America’s Favorite Pastime
16. Butthole Surfers – Whatever (I Had a Dream)
17. Thomas D – Ich Ich Ich oder der Schrei des Ego
18. The Mountain Goats – Lion’s Teeth
19. Big Pig – I Can’t Break Away
20. Ennio Morricone – L’Estasi Dell’Oro (Bandini remix)
21. The Avalanches – Frontier Psychiatrist

My friend Nick Lopez, photographer, dad and all kinds of awesome, just launched a new site devoted to Salem culture.

It is called FiveOhThree Magazine (after our area code) and is a meeting place for conversations about food, drink, music, and community profiles.

An almost lifelong Salemite, Nick has lots of connections within the Salem community that put him in a good place to tell the kind of stories that need telling. He was one of the first people whom I met in this city — he tracked me down at the debut of Frank Black’s Grand Duchy project at the now defunct local music spot The Space — and I have been watching him develop his portfolio of magazine editorial images for years now.

Nick says  profiles of people doing great things in the community are going to be the heart and soul of FiveOhThree. For a prolific profiler like me, that’s music to my ears, but I didn’t expect to be on the other end of one of the first Q & As, and with so illustrious an interviewer.  For this inaugural issue,  poetry professor Michael Chasar interviewed me about this blog, my ideas about the next generation of journalists, and the battle over Englewood’s favorite mailman, Paul Lunde, drummer for the Matthew Price band. Nick came over yesterday to take the shots.

From the look of it, you can already tell that it has Nick’s hands all over this site. How do I know this? Because I look freakin’ amazing in all of the pictures he took of me for the magazine’s first issue. Also, the fonts have the kind of clean look Nick prefers.

He had me at elephant Twitter font.

Technically, since I was on the other end of one of the nterview for this project, it is now my turn to interview someone else. Where, oh where should I go?

Remember that post I did a while back about how I’m Only Happy When It Rains? Turns out that was a bunch of bunk. I’ve had three winters here now and they have gone like this:

2009: Moved to a new city, made some new friends, started a blog, read inside and drank coffee while it drizzled politely

2010: Had a baby. Fed baby. Changed baby. Repeat. Did it rain? I don’t even remember.

2011: Stuck inside with toddler. Rain. More rain. Sunshi— Oh wait, no, more rain. Killer cold that lasts two months.24-hour vomiting flu. Lost my sense of smell. Got my Vitamin D levels checked. Started taking 20,000 units a day of Vitamin D.

If you’ve stepped outside you know that we are almost through the long dark rainy winter.

So this month, in my Statesman-Journal column, I give you an appreciation. The turning of the seasons. A new leaf. A love letter to cherry trees. Out with the old, in with the new.

By the way, some of you have asked how you are to know that the column is running, so I’ll give you an easy answer. First Friday of every month! You might also remember this as the same day of the month that the Matthew Price Band plays their gig at Seven Brides in Silverton.

I’ve been taking something of a blogging break this month, but I couldn’t let this one pass me by without a mention.

Salem’s own Karen Holman, tenured chemistry professor at Willamette University and the idea-lady behind KMUZ radio, just won Oregon Professor of the Year.

The Oregonian did a great profile of Prof. Holman, even posting a music video of her rocking out with her band.

Are you feeling a little bit sorry for yourself? Did you never have a punk rock teacher? Me either. Sad.

Karen is an inspiration to me — she moms, she rocks, she researches, she teaches, she has a family and she still engages with the world. And she has not given up on her dream of getting Salem a radio station of its own.

If you’ve been following KMUZ on Facebook (and you should), then you know that much has happened in the past month or so, with new volunteers coming on board to help launch the station and other state-wide donors stepping up with much-needed engineering equipment.

KMUZ also has some new branded gear up on Cafe Press. Indeed, you can pretend those strangers checking out your, um, pecs, are searching Where’s Waldo-like for the Oregon Pioneer.

Congrats, Karen! I’m filing you under “Salem Celebrities.”

I’ve been told there are a few seats left at the invite-only, Salem underground dinner and house series offered by Marc Nassar, one of the city’s longtime residents (and fellow Northeast Salemite).

This year’s show features Beth Wood, a Texas transplant to Eugene known for her soulful ballads, gritty southern charm and sultry stylings.

Dinner by Marc Nassar and Concert

ONLY $20.00 DINNER AND SHOW

$12.00 SHOW ONLY, ADVANCE TICKETS ADVISED

Here’s a little bit about her music and songwriting:

“…Wood has made magic on her latest disc, Marigolds, a collection of catchy and observant tunes …. Her sweet, cheerful voice blossoms around feel-good melodies that star a menagerie of characters – old beggars, best friends, sweatshop workers, exes, newborn babies – people who will capture your imagination.  But the most enchanting figure is the storyteller herself, whose engaging performance and emotionally riveting songs resonate with the vivacity of living life to its fullest – and most beautiful – potential.” -  Knoxville Metro Pulse

“…From its evocative lyricism to its vivid storytelling and master craftsmanship, “Marigolds is not so much simply a music recording — it’s a heartfelt, visceral experience. Wood has always had a gift for words and music. This latest effort is a rich glimpse at the stories, travels and personal growth of one of Asheville’s favorite Texans… – Laura Blackley of Take 5 online, Ashville Citizens Times.

“…There is a directness to Beth Wood’s voice that makes you lean a little closer to the speakers… In “Hurricane Caroline” you don’t know if she’s talking about a woman who’s big trouble or a real natural disaster.  Either way, Caroline leaves a “hush and a bucket of rain” after she leaves…. A vivid portrait of three generations of women appears in “Someday Somebody Will.” … and it doesn’t hurt that her writing is stellar here as it is on every song.” – Sing Out! Magazine.

Being one of those underground events, if you want an invite, you’ll have to contact Mr. Nassar directly for more information by visiting the Salem House Concert website or by emailing him at blueman [at] teleport.com.

Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Salem crawls in search of blood
To terrorize y’alls neighborhood.

And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere Salemite can resist
The evil of the thriller.

Ignore the obvious — that there was more life out there on the streets of Salem tonight than usual, and it was the life of the walking dead — and you have Salem’s contribution to the Thriller cultural behemoth.

The mass MJ meetup took place on Liberty and Chemeketa tonight at 5:30 prompt and lasted just about 11 minutes. I’m going to go ahead an nominate this one for best Salem family event of the year.

If you look closely, you might have even seen the spirit of MJ himself giving cred to the event.

But when the impulse to craft one’s own story starts sounding like a none-too-stealthy marketing campaign — and a slightly ridiculous one at that –  I can’t help but call shenanigans.

Today I’m calling out Christo’s, Salem’s generally awesome, family-owned pizza restaurant, which opened at a new location on Broadway earlier this year.

Now, Christo’s pizza is arguably Salem’s best. The hand-thrown crust is crisp, the sauce rocks, and I’m pretty sure I saw a couple at a table next to us last night eating a pizza that could have been baked in a joint on the trash-strewn streets of Naples.

Also, the place employs a completely brilliant performer and voice coach who moonlights as a server there and who is inclined to break out into Verdi’s  “La Donna è mobile,” filling the place with song and shaking everyone out of their rainy-night duldrums. (Watch that video and then try not to think of Stella d’Oro bread sticks…).

But flip over the menu and you might find something curious. A map of sorts. A message indeed. A little graphic that shows an Italian boot placed smack over Salem’s newest revitalized neighborhood and calling that ‘hood “Salem’s Little Italy.”

Now, we’ve all wondered about the name of this new neighborhood before. And I’ve tipped my hat towards something more original than the “Broadway District,” or anything else that borrows mythologies from other cities.

But “Little Italy” poses an exceptional problem, not least because Christo’s isn’t really a neighborhood filled will Italian immigrants. Does one restaurant a diminutive country make?

If that’s acceptable, than may I also propose the following.

Salem’s Chinatown: The block occupied by Kwan’s.

Salem’s Russian Village: That store tucked into the Northeast Lancaster Drive strip mall that claims to be a European gift store but whose pickles and tea suggest an audience of Russian immigrants.

Salem’s Japantown: That cafeteria at Willamette where Japanese students from the Tokyo University hang out.

Salem’s Czech Village: the Kafkaesque corridors of the City Police station.

The French Quarter: The span of road between La Capitale and Napoleon’s. Alternately: The parking lot housing the French Press and Bakery L’Amour.

What others are there?

I have this idea that for a city to achieve greatness in character it has to create its own stories, not borrow them.

I remember the first time someone ever called my husband and me a name so loaded, so antiquated, so unspecific that we could only respond based on our own biases.

We were hanging out with our friends Crystal and Cary, who are these unbelievable Midwestern hippies — the only real hippie friends we met while living in Iowa City. I had baked a cherry crumble, which we were eating with vanilla ice cream on a Saturday afternoon as the crowds milled towards Hawkeye Stadium for another football game we were surely not going to follow.

Crystal says: “Hey man, you guys are totally our hippie friends.”

“What? You’re our hippie friends. We’re not hippies.”

“Sure you are. You make your own yogurt and grow plants and are always recycling and eating all that hippie crunchy stuff. You guys are totally hippies.”

“No way, man, you’re the hippie. You’ve got the linguistic habits to prove it, man.”

And so, a misunderstanding, a challenge of sorts. No one really knows what a hippie is anymore. That’s why when I wrote my recent column on finding things to do at Salem until 2:00 a.m. on a Tuesday night and called Venti’s downtown our “go-to place for crunchy hippie food,” I received a little bit of flak from some people downtown who see hippie as a pejorative.

To be fair, I’ve been working on a better way to describe the food at Venti’s to massage the egos of these lovely Venti’s fans. I haven’t come up with anything to explain people who seem to have cut and pasted the best from a number of ethnic cultures to form new and exciting arrangements of hummus and peanut sauce (you get a kick in the pants if the word “fusion” just popped in your head).

But the real issue is the word “hippie.”

Maybe because I grew up on the East Coast, maybe because I have seen so many incarnations of hippies as to warrant the term almost meaningless — and certainly not the catch-all some seem to think it is — I’ve always kind of loved hippies.

We certainly saw our share of their modern incarnations at the Oregon Country Fair yesterday… and since hippies like to make stuff, I’ve selected a few images to show my fairest of the fair — the most interesting things I saw happening there.

Unlike some photographers there, who seemed more drawn to the “nudes” on display, I can’t say I felt compelled to capture the chaotic free-for-all pulsing through the woods at the fair. When things got really jammin’ at around 4:00 p.m., I was almost ready to leave. I can revel with the best of them, but I prefer not to be brushed by a stray breast or an… ahem… half-dressed unicorn.

A one-man stand of on-demand, hand-stitched Sewing Machine Designs:

The artist asked for a phrase of five words or less, which he would then interpret right before your eyes. I was seconds away from asking for “gas stove catching fire on bathrobe,” which actually happened to me last January, but then he was being kind of snooty and unresponsive and we decided to move on. I could have used a patch for that bathrobe, though.

Can anyone tell me what these are?

A puppet show about two bunny rabbits who go on a picnic:

Strange, carnival-esque Francophile revelers at the beginning of the fair:

More puppets: You are seeing a pattern. These are made by Portland’s Alchemystical Workshop.

Finally, things we ate at the fair:

1 potato and mushroom kanish
1 potato and garlic kanish
2 baklavas
1 cup of famous gumbo
2 ice cream sandwiches dipped in dark chocolate
1 homemade root beer float
1 avacado dreamboat stuffed with hummus, cheddar-jack and yogurt

Final verdict: Hippies like delicious food, making neat stuff that doesn’t always make sense, banging drums in circles, dancing like West Africans, whole grains, dressing up in fairy garb, forests, belly-dancing, natural childbirth, folk music, and puppets.

I won’t profess to being a hippie, but I still like them quite a bit, even –  as our pork dude at the Salem Saturday Market calls them — the “nudes.”

Just got a flyer from the Northeast Salem Community Association (if you don’t know what city neighborhood you live in, click here).

Good old No. 5, the NESCA,  is organizing a free summer concert series in the little parks tucked in the corners behind Old Salem’s (like Old Europe, only paved and with more stray cats) candy-colored cottages.

Here’s the breakdown:

Highland Park

2025 Broadway St. NE
6:30-8:30 pm.
July 7: Afincando
July 14: Scott Gallegos
July 22: Canyon Fever
July 28: Ellen Whyte

Northgate Park
3260 Northgate
6:30-8:30 pm.
July 19: Carrie Cunningham
July 26: Virtual Ground
August 2: EZ Eddy & The Jumpers
August 9: Coyote Creek

Hoover School Park
1250 Savage Road NE
5:30-7:30 pm.
August 22: Code Red
September 12: The Retrofits

If you don’t know any of the names, just click on the links and check them out. I for one was pretty astounded at what a little neighborhood association — even the coolest of them — can pull together.