Out and about Patriots Day revisited BY SAM PFEIFLE

It’s really too bad the Patriots didn’t wait to come up to Portland for the holiday that bears their name (or the other way around). The celebration might have been even larger. Not that the weekday deterred many folks from cutting work and heading down to Monument Square — many of them taking their hooky-playing kids with them.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, and who wouldn’t want to partake in what is now certifiably the best party Portland’s going to put on in a given year (with some help from Robert Kraft)? It just shows you that no event has a divine right to expect attendance and that drawing power will outstrip marketing every time. New Year’s Portland? Nice enough, but unless you went to the Portland Public Market, you’d have had a tough time knowing it was even going on. Concerts in Monument Square? A nice networking occasion (plus outdoor drinking), but it commands nowhere near the numbers or enthusiasm evidenced two Wednesdays ago. The Old Port Festival? Well, maybe if the weather’s right.

Nothing draws like a winner, though. Not one commercial was run, not one poster was posted in announcing this. The Patriots and city of Portland simply put out a little press release and waited for the crowds to form. And they got that Jumbotron — man, was that sweet. Imagine if that thing was set up year-round. That would get people to come downtown. No one can resist a big TV.

People simply took ownership of this team, and even if there were only going to be five players and one owner, it was more about the crowd coming together to enjoy themselves than it was about gawking at stars. It was about having a good party, which didn’t seem to be a problem for most people.

They were lined up and congregating by 11 a.m., some even earlier, for the 3:30 p.m. event. They were drinking heavily in Rivalries, and the Asylum, and the Stadium. They had silver-painted heads, and helmets with the old Pat logo on one side and the flying Elvis on the other. They bought hot dogs and fried onions from street-side vendors.

Where were the local vendors, though? The burrito man says he didn’t want to pay the extra $75 for a spot inside the parade route, and so moved from his standard spot outside Longfellow to down by the Nickelodeon. Took a bath, he says (and has an idea that the locals should have had first shot at the choice spots, anyway). Next time, he’ll pony up. A chat with Rob Rhor over at the Kitchen — he says he’s better known as "the Agitator" — shows that at least one Congress Street restaurant didn’t exactly benefit from all the people downtown either.

"We got hosed, basically," he says. Claims he actually was $200 or so down from where the shop would normally be. "Everybody just got it right on the street," he says of people buying their lunch from the many vendors who came from out of town to capitalize on the big crowd. Rohr says he’s going around to all the downtown restaurants trying to get them to sign a petition announcing that they don’t want food vendors allowed at these types of events. Well, no out-of-town food vendors, anyway.

There were other vendors in evidence, too. People selling paraphernalia of all Patriots stripes, particularly. A buddy of mine was helping one of his design clients shuck a whole bunch of "Belichick for President 2004" merchandise. The T-shirts, picket signs, and stickers were going like Deion Branch bolting up the sideline. Surprisingly, though, more than one attendee asked, "Who’s Belichick?"

You’ve got to love capitalism. If you go to www.belichickforpresident.com, you find yourself redirected to www.tailgateoutdoorwear.com, a site that sells, no kidding, clothes to tailgate in. Yes, a friend of mine designed the logo, but, seriously, there’s genius in this. The products haven’t even been unveiled yet, but think of the possibilities: hooks for tongs and barbecue fork to hang from, Scotchguarded gloves and mittens you don’t have to worry about getting ketchup and mustard on, hoods with built-in headphones for listening to the pregame.

It’s marginally better than the other clothing I saw being marketed: T-shirts bearing the title of Mrs. Brady, or Mrs. Vinatieri, or Mrs. Law. It’s a fashion trend sweeping the nation (maybe), having started with shirts for those in love with Hollywood and wanting to be Mrs. Damon (not Johnny, Matt — a local sports-radio caller has been calling herself Mrs. Damon for a while now) or Mrs. Affleck or Mrs. Timberlake. At the parade, flyers were up advertising www.mrsbrady.com, or you could call a number and be given the location of the table from which you could purchase these T-shirts for a cool $20, "available during the parade & rally Wed. 4/7 ONLY." As of two weeks later, they still seem to be available at the Web site, however. Maybe they meant they’d only have the table up on the sidewalk during the rally, but it would seem to go without saying.

Why would anyone do anything in Monument Square if the Patriots weren’t going to be there? Or a Jumbotron?

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at spfeifle@phx.com.