If you don’t make fun of our jugglers, sir, we won’t make fun of your mustache. What’s that? No deal?

Every week, John Roderick of the Long Winters writes a blog for Seattle Weekly, the lesser of Seattle’s alt-weeklies. But don’t hold that against him. In this week’s blog, he talked about what Seattle can learn from its smaller, rosier sister in the south:

Before I start, let me just say that no one hates reading “What Seattle can learn from Portland” lectures more than me. Portland, despite its charm, has one thousand percent more mimes, jugglers, and crusty potters than any city outside of Germany, and this fact permanently disqualifies Portland from teaching any civics lessons or from standing as an example of responsible growth. Until they fumigate their city of all its jugglers it will only be possible to appreciate their example by piecemeal.

Still, it is an undeniably nice, small town, and all the more impressive for having formerly and in recent memory been a totally scary left-coast wreck. It was only a few years ago that you practically had to wade through junkie prostitutes just to get your chainmail fitted at the Renaissance smithery, and the only interesting thing about the city was the curious abundance of punk rock/hippy chicks who dressed like a cross between Minnie Pearl and Tank Girl that you could find nowhere else in the world. Except for Germany. Fast forward to now and it feels like an EPCOT center futureland, where people are home-brewing biodiesel from bat guano and kiwi fruit, plucking banjos made from old PC circuit boards, and eating nuclear waste and shitting out diamonds.

The Long Winters play at the Wonder Ballroom on Thursday, July 3. Also appearing are Portland’s own Builders and the Butchers. We don’t know at this time if the mustache will also be making an appearance.

Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that this is happening on the same day that the OLCC voted to amend the minors posting law, but all you bartenders and grocery store employees better have your poop together tonight:

Oregon Partnership, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission and several Multnomah County law enforcement agencies will conduct compliance checks tonight – using decoys at 80-90 randomly selected grocery stores, bars, taverns and restaurants in hopes of reducing alcohol sales to minors. The decoy teams will depart from the Portland Police Bureau’s East Precinct headquarters at 737 S. E. 106th at approximately 6:30 p.m. The operation is expected to be concluded by 10 p.m. Compliance checks are a proven method to reduce sales of alcohol to underage drinkers. The underage decoys will attempt to purchase alcoholic beverages as part of the operation. “We do these decoy operations so that the folks who sell alcohol get the message loud and clear about selling to people under 21,” says Pam Erickson, deputy director of Oregon Partnership, a non-profit alcohol and drug prevention organization that spearheaded the missions under a grant from the Oregon Department of Human Services. About a quarter of the randomly selected Multnomah County stores, bars and restaurants involved in last February’s decoy operation sold alcoholic beverages to minors. That illegal sales rate is the same as was recorded in the compliance checks carried out in December, 2007 by Oregon Partnership, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, and Multnomah County law enforcement agencies. But it also shows an increase over the past year. Of the 72 establishments visited in February, 18 sold alcohol to minors, which equates to 25%. That compares to an illegal sales rate of 19.7% recorded in the decoy operation in June of 2007 and 18% in March of 2007.

Well, there’s not much to be said for terrestrial radio at this point, but Little Steven (aka Silvio) sometimes plays some choice nuggets on his Underground Garage show. In the most recent episode, he pays homage to the birthplace of garage rock, i.e. the Pacific Northwest. The show’s highlights are tunes by bands from the ’60s that hailed from Portland, Tacoma, Seattle and Vancouver—including the Wailers, Paul Revere & the Raiders, and the Kingsmen—so if you’re looking for something to listen to today, you can check it out here. Warning: you’ll probably also hear Pearl Jam, Hendrix, and a shamelessly self-promoting Springsteen tune.