A couple weeks ago some folks from Portlandia contacted me regarding tiny houses. They explained that they are doing a web series to show that even though the show spoofs on how bizarre Portland is, there really are people doing strange and wonderful things here. (Here's the video!)
“We want to interview people who live in a tiny house community in Portland,” they said. I explained that there isn’t yet a community of tiny houses here, but many of us are working on starting one. (For good measure, I asked on the Portland Tiny Houses facebook group and no one else knew of one that already exists either.) However, I assured Portlandia I could connect them with tiny house residents and suggested a few possibilities. They ended up deciding to interview John Labovitz about his Tiny House Truck and they invited me to be part of the interview.
It was pretty amazing to see the crew arrive and descend upon John’s 14-foot-long-tiny house. They’d sent their “small” crew of about 20 people. (By the way, how in the world did they manage to find parking for not one but two 15 passenger vans right off a main street on a weekend afternoon!?) In addition to the sound crew and the video crew there were people who had us fill out waivers and people who made sure we weren’t wearing any brand name stuff. I was sporting a Yestermorrow T-shirt on purpose, but I was pretty sure they’d be okay with it and luckily they were. There were people who held shiny screens to reflect the light in the right way. And I’m pretty sure one guy’s sole responsibility was to dispense tape!
The folks who did the interview were funny, but it was clear they hadn’t done their homework because they weren’t asking the right questions. They didn’t really know much about tiny houses. Sometimes it seems to me everyone knows about tiny houses by now, but it’s a good reminder that’s not true. Since we were at John’s place most of their questions were for him, but I had fun piping up a couple times to tell them about Downsizing from a Tiny House to a Tinier House and My 200 Things Challenge.
If the interview is used it all it will be part of a web series leading up to the next Portlandia series. Either way, it was a fun experience. And it certainly made my moving day epic!
Update: Here's the video! Turns out I didn't get a speaking part after all, which is fine by me since John and his wee house truck (and his neighbors) are the stars anyhow!