So, Who Wants On the Blazers Bandwagon?

Unless you’re busy spending $150,000 on clothes and makeup — and therefore spreading the wealth! — you’ve undoubtedly heard that my Trail Blazers are back. With Oden’s beard, Roy’s stealth, and Coach Nate’s bark, these P-Towners are set to squash Western Conference bottom-feeders and force the looming giants to take heed of their future replacements.

And that’s good news for you, because the Blazers Backers’ recruitment office is currently taking applications for bandwagoners.

The requirements are simple and straightforward, and remember, please note how many times an airport screener has discovered your tinfoil-covered marijuana. (We can’t explicitly deny entry to Damon Stoudamire, but we’re going to try everything we can.)

No cutting, unless it’s on a backdoor pick, and please, no head tattoos or calls to “Get caught up in life!”. Sonics fans should form in the quick-pass line, while those abandoning the Suns’ ship, busy going down in flames, might take a bit longer to organize their burning paperwork.

The requirements are as follows:

•    Must despise being surrounded by four walls, especially while awake. As a parallel requirement, you must scale at least one mountain per year, kayak one river per six months, and hike a national park every other week.

•    Must be willing to deface anything at a moment’s notice, so long as those items contain gold and/or purple. If anything in your house — be it clothes, faucets, satin sheets, or shrines to Omar Cook — is colored gold or purple, discontinue reading, because we don’t want you.

•    Must display bike rage at ignorant motorists breathing down your neck as you pedal along I-84. If you have to get a license plate on your bike, then, heck, you should be able to cruise along the highways, right?

•    Must believe in Sasquatch. (Sonics fans may have a leg up in this area.)

•    Must be willing to slash tires of any U-Dub or Wazzoo fan, but willing to root for the Ducks or Beavers no matter the opponent.

•    Must sign a petition to return Boomer the Beaver to his rightful place in PGE Park.

•    Must be willing to spend at least seven straight hours in a bookstore. If illiteracy is your thing, then I have no idea how you’re understanding this, but I’m intrigued, and you may continue your application.

•    Must wear a bullet-proof vest when traveling on the East Side. (Ok, this one’s a joke — Portland’s safer than the Bubble Boy, and Hawthorne St.’s bistro-and Shins-lovers won’t try to hustle you as you pass them by, unless it’s for your opinion on Gus Van Sant.)

•    Must be terrified of three centimeters of snow.

•    Must not time travel to 1815 and get Shanghai’d in one of Portland’s underground tunnels. I mean, you can, but do you really want to sweep the poop deck as some pirate’s slave?

•    Must always see a Major League Baseball team just beyond the horizon, knowing that one day, the politicians, team owners, and city officials will all be on the same page, bringing the Portland Cascades from my dreams to a downtown ballpark.

•    Must convince at least three people to place “Nader/LaDuke 2000” signs in their front yards, and keep them there through Nov. 4.

•    Must have seen The Hunted, Mr. Brooks, and Are We There Yet? and despised every one of them.

•    Must know what geoducks and tree octopi are. (If not, feel free to look them up — you won’t be disappointed. Well, maybe you will, but that really depends on your standards.)

•    Must claim East Coast bias on everything from NBA predictions to food reviews, because let’s face it, it’s always there.

•    Must revile Bob Whitsitt, love Martell’s shooting stroke, guess Oden’s age, miss Kevin Duckworth, steal Brian Grant’s dreads, want Bill Schonely as a surrogate grandfather, admire Jason Quick, feel for Sam Bowie, live on the Blazers' Edge, smoke with Bill Walton, and name first child “Clyde” (or, if it’s a girl, “The Glide.”)

If you have read and understood the stipulations for Blazers bandwagoning and are still interested in this unique and vaunted position, please contact recruiters at [e-mail], [e-mail], or [e-mail].

NB: If you use umbrellas, nuh-uh, thanks but no thanks. None of those namby-pamby water shields — only Columbia Sportswear up here, kid.

(PS: Any more I missed?)