There's a popular bumper sticker that's been selling around my area lately: "Keep Portland Weird." Contrary to what most think, though, it's not ours: the original sticker said "Keep Austin Weird" and originated in Texas. The sticker got so popular there that someone tried it here, and now it's being done elsewhere, so you can now support keeping Cincinnatti and Pittsburgh Weird. I don't know how weird Austin is, but I do know Portland can at times be......pretty darn weird. Austin doesn't have this:

Portland Saturday Market is an open-air place that opens on weekends and features rows and rows of tiny tents where people sell homemade wares. To put it more accurately, Portland Saturday Market is a hippie magnet.

Under the onmipresent eye of Packy the All-Seeing Elephant, hundreds of tents are set up each weekend and stocked with garage-made merchandise that wouldn't sell in a garage sale. PSM may be the only place on Earth where you can make money off some of the things I saw there.

Yes, I bet that bag is strong in more ways than one. The first thing I would have shown you was a booth where you could buy a street sign for any situation you find yourself in: "Beware of Alligator." "Three-Headed Siamese Triplet Crossing." But as I rose the camera to my face, the merchant planted her plump body squarely in front of all her wares and flatly said "NO!!"

"I'm not trying to take a picture of you, I want to get the signs."
"NO PICTURES!!!"

Fine then, weirdo...no free advertising for you.

Portland Saturday Market makes no attempt to hide its political stance on bananas.

I have to admit that the last time I was in Portland Saturday Market, I was 1/3 the size I am now, which would be at least 15 years ago. "Become a 'Toon!" was the only booth I remembered that still existed. This place has many caricature booths now, but noplace where you can get a glossed wooden coat hook board with the letters of your name glued on -- which is what I walked away with the last time I was here. It held up well. But now the hanger is gone and so is the booth it originated from. Ratso.

Everything's beyond the norm. You can't JUST get a drawing of your face out of Portland Saturday Market....you can get a plaster mold made of your head! This reality would only be perfected if one could grow fuzzy grass from the top of the molds. I'm serious...if someone found a way to make homemade personalized Chia Pets, they'd be the biggest moneymakers PSM had yet.

This merchant's selling nothing but those whirlygig doodads women hang on their porches. It's like the resurrection of HK Limited here....

And I don't even KNOW what THIS guy's selling........Any of you have any idea?

Yes, there was a skeleton in a jester hat walking around the area, stopping to do tricks for people. In fact, there was more than one of them. Now I've seen everything.

"Really? Have you ever seen a man eat his own head?"

Yes. At Portland Saturday Market.

"Ah, well then, never mind."

Most of the items at PSM are made from recycled material. In some cases this is more obvious than in others. What would you buy this for; bragging rights?

"Yo, wut up dawg, check out my duct tape wallet. Way phatter than alla yours, word."

You may already own a chair...but do you own a chair for your cell phone?

Admit it....there's a hole in your life.

To top any trip to Portland Saturday Market, and to stall going home and having to explain to your significant other what you just spent money on, visit the food court. What's an elephant ear? ....Well, for starters, it's not a literal elephant ear--this is hippie country and that's chow for the more conservative folk. The elephant ears sold here are big slabs of sugar dough sprinkled with sugar and topped with sugar. Only SUGAR has more SUGAR. You can become diabetic just by looking at it.

Now click the TV to take the......

PORTLAND SATURDAY MARKET QUICKIE VIDEO TOUR
You know you want to.....

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