Tuesday, September 12, 2006

The Pink Robot


The gentleman in this profile is a former boss of mine, as well as former next door neighbor. Imagine how proud I am at this moment. Let's read. My quotes are in italics.

Builder Makes His Mark on Portland Traditions
(from the Oregonian, September 11, 2006)
By Stephen Beaven

So how, exactly, did a scrawy high school wrestler from Florida become a securities broker, a school psychologist, a Flaming Lips obsessive and a developer of large, architecturally adventuresome condo projects that are challenging Portland's sleepy, tradition-bound neighborhoods?
Well, as I recall the story, he inherited his initial funding from one or both of his parents dying, but perhaps I'm wrong. It's also sort of inaccurate to refer to him as a 'builder', but that gets dealt with in the body of the article. The fact that he was once employed by the school district as a psychologist struck a number of us as all too apt, since he's pretty damn childish himself. Sociopathic, even, but we'll get into that later.

The answer comes tumbling from Randy Rapaport's lips in a torrent.
"I have to answer that on multiple levels," Rapaport says. "Because that's a big one."

Here we have the beginnings of the subtle chain that runs throughout the profile: even though Mr. Beaven's employers would like him to write a postitive profile of this guy, it's hard to give an accurate depiction without noting how hard it is to interact with him. Randy once prefaced a criticism of my person with, "YOU, you you you you..." I stopped him at 'you' number five and pointed out that he might not want to start sentences that way; it sort of makes one sound crazy, or something.

Then he starts his riff, which is part of an ongoing monologue that covers his philosophy of life, real estate, finance, music, art, architecture, creativity, consciousness, the teachings of Carl Jung, Buddhism, Jesus, etc. Oh, and also Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips.

Ah yes. His love-okay, obsession-with this band stems from an unfortunate aspect of Randy's personality. He doesn't have friends, he has employees, and this has left him even lonelier than he already is. Being a middle aged gay male who has serious problems interacting with actual people has often led him to boasting to interested strangers that he's very wealthy.
This sort of thing led to attracting The Mosquitoes, as I often called them: gay hustlers looking for lonely, dysfunctional men with money. In return for his money, they would give him the illusion of friendship, and occasionally pass on their tastes in all things hip to him. I once pointed out to him that if he didn't want to end up as dead as Gianni Versace, he might want to watch it.
The invite for the opening of the Belmont Street Lofts contained this paraphrase of Flaming Lips lyrics, by the way:
"The process had begun
a million came from one (Randy, I imagine)
the limits now were none
they lifted up the sun."

But he's the only one pushing such projects with a peculiar mix of boundless braggadocio and disarming vulnerability. He might also be the only developer who sees his work as a higher calling, and he isn't afraid to talk about it as such.

This probably makes him pretty happy, seeing his fairly garden variety profit motive described as 'a higher calling'. But he does have a mission, of sorts: make Randy Rapaport someone that others are forced to take seriously. His 'vulnerability' is open to debate: at a recent meeting in the Boise neighborhood, he was suddenly so overwhelmed at having to face an entire crowd who might not necessarily like him, he started hyperventilating, and had to sit down. Observers in the audience wondered afterward if maybe it was a sympathy-seeking ploy. I pointed out that actually, he does that sort of thing all the time, and was probably terrified at the reminder that there are, actually, other people in the world.
He did his usual, by the way, and made a great show of listening to the neighbors' concerns, shortly before pointing out that he was going to do whatever he wanted anyway. I can't tell you how many times I personally received the 'I'm the boss' lecture from him. It always made me smile.

Surely, he's the only one who looks like a 40-something Woody Allen, carrying around a skateboard and dressing like a record-store clerk.

And 'carry (it) around' he does. Never seen him ride the damn thing.


With projects in the works all over Portland, Rapaport has big, big plans. Just ask him.
"I'm acquiring great sites on geographically significant corners," he says. "And I'm maxing out the zoning. Here's why. There's two reasons. One, it allows for the most efficient economics. And it allows me to do the most refined developments."
Of course, not every project has been so refined. He was a partner in a suburban apartment development in Washington, a deal he did "just for money," he says.

'Maxing out the zoning' doesn't strike me as something all that appealing, depending on what he means by that: I like Portland's land use laws, and I'm not the only one. The fact that it 'allows for the most efficient economics' strikes me as another basically meaningless phrase, especially when one asks, "for whom?". Nice that the messianic aspect is tempered here by the obvious: he does some things 'just for money', too.

It's big and begging to be noticed, embodying Rapaport's outsized sense of possibility. Each of his projects, he says, "has a potential to become a landmark."

Yes, but of what? Vanity? I mean, the Belmont lofts were award winning, but the award went to Holst Architecture, not Randy. He's just the money man, and to be fair, nothing happens without those, but still...That 'begging to be noticed' strikes me as being a possible editorial comment by Beaven, by the way, who at this point in the interview might have been getting tired of his subject.


Architectural traditionalists say the lofts' boxy exterior and imposing height intrude on a neighborhood of two-story storefronts and Old Portland-style bungalows.

True enough. Innovations are inevitable and sometimes good, but I personally think these developments are ugly as shit, and I'm not terribly surprised that they largely sit empty.

Last year, Rapaport bought property at the southeast corner of Division Street and 26th Avenue for $875,000. True to form, he planned a modern, four-story retail/residential development.
Some neighbors greeted the project with open arms, anticipating new shops and a boost in property values.
But Rapaport also encountered hostility.
Nearby residents opposed his decision to move a historic home to make room for the condos. They weren't happy with the building's height. They didn't think much of Rapaport, either.
He can be quite charming one-on-one, says Joe Hagedorn, chairman of the Hosford-Abernethy neighborhood association. But he also comes across as cocky and inaccessible, Hagedorn says, adding that at one meeting, Rapaport wore his sunglasses virtually the whole time.

His take on the whole thing, as published in Willamette Week, said it all. His response was a version of the 'I'm the Boss' speech that portrayed himself as beholden to no one else's needs. Theoretically, he's right: he bought the property, he can do whatever the hell he wants with it. However, at the risk of looking like Starbucks or something, he might want to at least try to consider the suggestions of those already living and working in the area.

Contractor Craig Schommer sits at one end of the table. At 6-feet-6 with a thick helmet of brown hair, he looks like a gracefully aging college football player.
Rapaport, wearing jeans and a polo shirt, sits at the other end, 5-feet-9, jittery as a high school kid.
They're at the offices of Holst Architecture, to discuss a proposed development at East 28th Avenue and Burnside Street. Rapaport, at his core, is a businessman. Today he wants Schommer, the likely builder, to cut construction costs from a rough estimate so he can create a contingency fund. He minces no words.
"We can't afford to spend over nine million," Rapaport says. "That's it. We can't do it. We're not going to do it. We can't go over nine million. So, help us tighten up."
He is insistent. Cut costs. The tension rises, ever so slightly.
"You know what they say," Schommer tells him, "if you want it built cheap, it will be built cheap."
"We're just looking for a balance," Rapaport says.
Then he's joking, recalling the story of the pussycat and the bear, how they become fast friends. In this scenario, Rapaport is the pussycat and Schommer is the bear.
"I'm going to have to think about that one for a long time," Schommer says.

This is priceless. Whenever confronted by the realities of the world, as opposed to the world inside his head, he either goes Enforcer on your ass or tries to charm you. The fact that he attempts here to charm a contractor with a weird, infantile story isn't out of character for Randy at all.
He subscribes to that vague, poorly-digested version of Westernized Buddhism that a lot of people in his age bracket do. Wherever it validates his own beliefs and suspicions, of course. One time a postal carrier, an Asian American woman, was dropping off the mail at the coffee shop where I worked for Randy. Up on the shelf was one of those cat-with-a-raised-fist statues that are easily purchased in most Asian markets. The postal carrier pointed out that the cat was facing ever so slightly in the wrong geographical direction. Randy went and repositioned it reverently, then launched into a gushing speech about how that Cat was 'the only thing keeping the coffee shop open...The place wouldn't be here at all, without it...'
After she (gratefully, I felt) left, I looked at him and said, "Oh quit pretending you've got a soul."
No wonder he fired me. But also, I was hardly the only one pointing out that his management practices were poor, to put it lightly. He was so obsessed with both the business as social clubhouse for his personal aggrandizement ("This is my coffeeshop") and neurotic distrust of his employees that he'd be in there three times daily, stoned as a loon, interrupting the flow of business to 'count the money'. This often left the drawer way off, which he admitted, in his frank-er moments, but also prevented entire lines of people from actually paying for their drinks, which is the necessary other half of the deal, I believe.
A lot of the time, since I could get to the espresso machine but not the cash register, I'd say, "My lovely assistant will take your money," leaving it up to him as to whether or not the business got paid for the goods it sold. He couldn't be bothered; those other people did not matter to the degree that his whatever-the-hell-he-was-doing did.
Customers started not patronizing the place specifically because they disliked Randy, and couldn 't stand the way he treated his employees. I told him this. He looked frightened, but didn't stop his post-bonghit incursions to a business that, let's face it, could run itself.

"I used to sit in the basement of the house we lived in. It was very quiet. I would sit there and play with these Lincoln Logs. I was probably about 6. I would build these little houses. You look at my Belmont Street Lofts, there might be a thread of connection on some level.
"And the other thing," he's rolling now, "I would hang out in the park. I was about 7, and there were these birch trees. The entryways of each unit on the Belmont building, we had a birch entryway. But I didn't make the connection until later, which is even more honest."

Congratulations on being honest there, Mr. Rapaport. He once ended one of his weird threat/plea for friendship soliloquies with, "Wasn't I open and understanding there? And willing to listen?"
I pointed out to him that actual well adjusted humans don't expect credit for being mature. No wonder he fired me.

His success has also allowed him a sort of jet-set lifestyle. He can afford two homes in the same city. And he can fly off to see the Flaming Lips whenever he wants. He's proof that creative idealism and commerce can co-exist.

I guess you could call it that...

But enough about art and architecture. How much is he worth?
"Many millions," he says, and then has second thoughts, followed immediately by third thoughts.
"Several millions, I guess. What does 'many' mean? 'Many' could mean 50. Several millions could be the truth.
"But you put that in the paper. I don't know. I tell you stuff that's going to make me look, I don't know.
"Should I say no comment?"

I don't know, but I couldn't have explained it any better myself. The urge to scream, "I'm rich, biooootch!" mixed with "Wait a minute; does this make me look selfish? I'm a Buddhist, you know..." are the twin engines of his neurosis. Damn good thing he is rich, in fact: no one would talk to him otherwise.

posted by princeO'darkness @ 11:56 AM

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