The Other Side of the Portlandia Saga

A few days ago, I posted a comprehensive recap of our quest to get the Pedal Powered Talk Show on Portlandia. Before you get any further, I’d recommend you check that out by clicking here. Trust me! There are celebrity cameos and at the end I get on Portlandia! After you’ve read it come back here for some shocking revelations!

Have you read it? Great! Now you can keep reading this blog post.

Over the weekend, I heard from Moses, the Portlandia staff member mentioned (and photographed) in the BuzzFeed article and he generously offered up his side of the story. He answered all the questions I’d been asking myself for years! Did they know about the quest? How did the petition get in the bathroom? Did they think I was nuts? But enough questions. Here are all the answers in the form of a comment that Moses wrote on my Facebook wall:

After you guys left we were all very confused. Who is this guy? What is this show? Don’t they know season 5 had already been written, we can’t just write them in now. I did some research, saw a few of your episodes, including the goat field one which is how I assume you figured out where our office was. That was the other big question, how did they know where we were? I even tried googling “Portlandia production office address” and there are literally zero results. Obviously because we don’t advertise that, yet you figured it out. You claim you had an inside source, I’m curious who it is, but we’ll table that.

I wanted to put the petition in the writer’s room, and I did, but then I remembered the writers are gone, because, well, the show had been written. Admittedly, I then pondered throwing the thing away, it was just so big and I was left in charge of it and I had no idea what to do with it because I knew despite your best efforts the only way you were getting on the show that year was by being an extra and that probably meant you’d have to keep your cargo bike desk at home. After doing more research and seeing how long this petition had been going around and all the effort you had put into this campaign, I just didn’t have it in me to get rid of it.

Naturally, my immature instinct was to put it in the men’s bathroom. So I did. A week later we started shooting season 5 and I forgot all about it.

Then a few weeks later (several weeks into production, WAAAYYYYY too late to be written in) I got a call from Natalie saying you had returned with the picture of you and me with the petition blown up and framed and at that point we both kinda thought you lost your mind. I was however very flattered and told her to store it somewhere so I could have it. Not too long after, we were shooting at Lan Su Chinese Garden when I was driving to set and you walked right in front of my car at a 4-way stop, just a block away from where we were shooting!! I very nearly opened the window to tell you where we were and maybe you could get on. But I didn’t, because I shouldn’t, and I’m sorry. Anyways, you did make a BG appearance that year in the punk BBQ sketch, but unfortunately it was after I had left to go back to school so we couldn’t finally meet on set.

As I’m sure you’re aware, the building we use to work out of got torn down (it’s a shame really, I loved that spot) so we had to move to a new office. I’m not telling you where it is, though I’m guessing you already know. I wasn’t part of the move itself but when I showed up in July I was surprised to find out that not only had the petition survived the move but it also went straight to the bathroom, along with the framed photo. A place for everything and everthing in it’s place right? I’ll tell you this much, the petitions makes great bathroom reading material and I’ve probably read it 50+ times.

Anyways, a few days ago I watched the noodle-monster episode and I saw you, your helmet and the desk! We shot that episode over the course of the whole summer and once again I had already left by the time you got involved so I had no idea you made it on and it was a delightful surprise. Then Steve, our production coordinator, emailed me the link to this article and after reading it and seeing that my stupid decision to put this thing you had worked so hard on in the bathroom may have actually been the best thing I could have done with it, well, it felt good.

All this being said you owe it all to Adam, this was his first year working on the show as the extras coordinator therefore he had no prior knowledge or context to the entire petition/campaign. To him you were just a large group of Portlandia loving bike enthusiasts desperate to be on the show. Perfect.

In conclusion, I’m sorry I put your petition in the bathroom, it deserved better than that. But now, it’s definitely never going to leave the bathroom and when this show is all wrapped up I’m taking it home and putting it in my bathroom. Unless you want it back. Actually, no, you can’t have it back. Well, maybe. We’ll work something out.

All the best,

Crew Member Moses

So there you have it! Now you know the whole story. Thanks Moses and thanks to all you for supporting our long and arduous quest!