EW Letter of the Week

The rhetoric about Californians moving to and ruining Oregon used to be pretty heavy back in the '70s and '80s. Oh, Lord we hated those damn Californians. We didn't say "Don't Californicate Oregon" as much as you might think, but maybe only because words like "fornicate" weren't used around the children.

We don't hate on the Californians as much any more. Possibly because they didn't heed our warnings and moved here and destroyed Oregon anyway. It could also be because we Oregonians discovered that Californians were willing to pay ridiculously large sums of money for our houses. It's hard to hate someone who's buying your house for $100,000 more than it is worth.

Also, I think the Californians caught on with opening your public discourse with the phrase "I'm from California..." was the surest way to get people to automatically reject whatever came out of your mouth next. Fortunately for us, Patricia Burkart, formerly of Santa Cruz, CA, did not get the memo. Her letter-to-the-editor of the Weekly is so over-the-top for I second I thought it might be parody. I mean, she mentions that she is from California twice and then takes a swipe at backwardness of we Eugeneans. I don't guess that it is a parody, but either way, I salute Patty's efforts to remind us of the good ol' days.

REFORMAT CALENDAR

As someone who for 30 years read the comparable Santa Cruz Good Times weekly, I grew accustomed to a certain ease in negotiating the listed entertainment options. Now, as a Eugene resident, repeatedly I find your calendar of events irritatingly difficult to navigate.

Here are some suggestions.

Bother to write the address, time, phone number and cost of events at each mention of said event. Your modus operandi is to refer readers to some other section/page to get the relevant data. Each time you do this, I feel like using you as fire starter.

Another problem is that very few of your club listings tell what genre the band plays. This is so incredibly irritating. Can’t you insist that if groups want to be listed their main genre statement be a “required field”?

Your club listing is so minimal. Why? Do you or don’t you have a stake in keeping as many clubs open as possible? The Santa Cruz Good Times graphs all the club offerings for the week on a two-page spread so that everything is obvious at a glance. For any given day you see every club, the name of the groups, the styles of music, the cover charges, the phone number, location and start time.

In your weekly a person has to go several steps on several pages before determining that the dive in question is out of town.

I go out almost every night. Just remembering my bad experiences with your rag causes my jaw to tighten.

You owe me more than an apology. You owe me reform.

And by the way, your art reviews. Well, I’ll let that slide; I don’t know your audience. All I know about them is that they insist on scruffy beards and old-timey symphony programs. Sigh.

Patricia Burkart, Eugene