We moved to PDX in the mid-70's, and found life here was different - very different.
The City Council was attempting to cope with cable TV,
so there were onslaughts by the broadcast networks,
the phone company, the electric company, and most importantly,
the unique and "weird" neighborhoods of Portland.
Eventually, the cable was installed, but among the concessions to the neighborhood groups,
the City Council demanded one channel be set aside for "public access" - with NO editing or censorship.
As a result, Portlanders were treated to TV as they had never seen before.
... silliness of all sorts, amateurs of all sorts, evangelists of all sorts,
and NUDITY
--- nudity in the studio and films of public-nudity on beaches, city streets, etc.
To say the least, the public access channel was a guilty-pleasure success.
Many people watched, but only a very few defended publicly
... and so eventually it's policies became compromised and the channel failed.
It was a great social experiment.
But, Larry Nielsen held on, and stayed in the public eye
with his-to-her store-front church and street-evangelism,
all at a time when such complex images and messages
were unacceptable to most of society.
OregonLive.com
Nancy Haught, The Oregonian
6/13/13
Sister Paula Nielsen, Portland's transgender Christian evangelist, tells all
Quote:
<snip>
Born in Portland, the former Larry Maclean Nielsen often jokes
that she was born "with my mother's features and my father's fixtures."
May 1 marked her 50th year living as a woman, and part
of her anniversary celebration is the publication of her book,
"The Trans-Evangelist: The Life and Times of a Transgender Pentecostal Preacher."
It covers 70 of her 74 years, a childhood of teasing and bullying for being "different,"
her conversion when she was 12 and her gradual understanding of what it means to be a transgender person.
<snip>
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