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.