Despite Unicycle Theft, Unipiper Says Portland 'A Special Place'

PORTLAND, OR — "It's not that I woke up one morning and said, 'flaming bagpipes, Darth Vader costume, unicycle.' It's been an evolution."

That's Brian Kidd, better known as The Unipiper, Portland's Darth Vader costumed unicycler who plays the Star Wars theme on his flame-shooting bagpipes while riding the streets of Portland, discussing the his transformation from East Coast transplant to Portland icon.

The occasion of the conversation is not a particularly happy one. In October, someone smashed the rear window of his Volkswagen Golf and stole his unicycle.

"Seriously, who smashes a car window to steal a friggin' unicycle?" Kidd asks.

While Kidd has yet to receive an answer to that question – he filed a police report but there's been no news since – it hasn't tamped down his activities or enthusiasm for Portland.

"I had a backup unicycle that I had on hand for flat tire situations and so forth," he says. "And soon after the insurance company replaced the window on my car and I was able to get a new unicycle."

Brian Kidd/The Unipiper

Kidd says that if anyone sees a 24'' Torker black with custom Chris Holm seat and string lights around the rim, it may be his.

The theft did lead to a period of silence on social media and it was only this past weekend that Kidd decided to make the theft public.

"I've been getting back into the swing of things and I thought about whether or not to share the news of the theft. Portland has has more than its share of not-so-good news lately and I didn't want to pile on.

"I don't want to see Portland keep slipping down the path that it's been on. At the same time, if letting people know could bring some attention to what's going on and cause people to stop and think, then that would be great."

Kidd loves Portland, he has ever since moving here in 2007.

He'd gotten a degree in marine biology from the University of Virginia and was working at an aquarium in North Carolina when he decided that it was time for something new.

"I had friends who were living out here," he says "It was the time when, as Portlandia pointed out, young people were moving here to retire. I was ready to move on to the next thing."

By this point, Kidd had mastered the unicycle.

"I was at the University of Virginia and fished it out of a dumpster," he says. "I started and just got better."

The bagpipes also moved west with him.

"I saw a flyer for free bagpipe lessons while in school," he says. "Sounded like a fun idea."

The idea of combining the two had been in his head for a bit but bagpipes weren't cheap and he feared having to buy a new set. the fear only left after a few beers one night.

Darth Vader mask and playing the Imperial March from Star Wars came after, once he was in Portland.

"I'm a huge Star Wars fan so the Vader mask, playing Star Wars on the bagpipes, it all just seemed to follow logically," he says.

Also added after the move was the flame spewing aspect of the instrument. Kidd had read about a company that could do that and worked with them to make his pipes more visually memorable.

In 2011, video of him riding burned across the interwebs and Kidd found himself getting invites to be on shows such as Jimmy Kimmel and the Tonight show.

It didn't all go to his head because Kidd knows that without the flaming bagpipes and Darth Vader mask, to much of the world, he is just Brian.

"I ride my bicycle to work and sometimes it feels weird holding on to the handles because of all the time on the unicycle," Kidd says. "One day, I'm riding and my hands are hanging at my side and another bicyclist pulls up next to me, yells, 'You're not the Unipiper,' and speeds off."

Once in Portland, Kidd shifted away from marine biology and started working for a company flying remote aircraft conducting geographic surveys, a decision that would soon figure in his life in a very positive way.

"I was performing at Saturday Market," Kidd says. "It was a really hot July day and she came up to leave a tip. She also left me an iced tea next to my tip jar. I finished playing and tried to figure out who left the tea. As I was doing that, the police came up to me.

"There had been another bagpiper playing the week before who had caused a disturbance and they thought that it might be me. So, the woman who left the tea, saw the police, and decided maybe I wasn't such a good idea."

Except...

"Not long after we were matched on eharmony."

Turned out that they had more in common than an almost-meeting at Saturday Market.

The woman – now his wife, Sarah – was working on her PhD at Portland State University. As part of her research, she was using data gathered by Kidd and his company.

They've been married almost 1o years and have a 4-year-old daughter.

"I want her to recognize that Portland is a special place unicyclists with bagpipes can achieve some level of success," he says. "We want her – and others – to think that they can be the next Unipiper."

To help keep that dream alive, in late 2018, Kidd started a nonprofit, Weird Portland United.

"It's an organization dedicated to keeping Portland living that weird Portland life," he says. "It's a way of uniting and organizing the weird and help save that aspect of Portland.

"We want to help artists and others dedicated to the cultural side of Portland, the people who want to live here not just the people who live here because they took a job for a company based here."

Kidd says that one of the goals of the organization is to help the people who happen to be here understand what it is about Portland that makes people want to be here.

"We want to show why Portland is special, why it's worth fighting for, why it's worth sticking up for," he says. "It's the responsibility of those who are here because they felt a need to be to show why it's special to those who are here because they were told that they need to be here."

Kidd says that while wishes that no one had smashed his car and stole his unicycle, the incident left him feeling more love for the city and its potential.

"There was such an outpouring of people wanting to help, people wanting to give me a new unicycle," he says. "It's all been so heartwarming. It shows you how this is a special place filled with special people."

Kidd says that Weird Portland United is working with Gigantic Brewing on a series of events to help the nonprofit and to help promote the city, including a Weird Beer Week.

The brewery is developing and releasing new beers as part of the collaboration. The first one – Unifier Hazy IPA – will be launched this Friday at their taproom on Southeast 26th. Kidd, or rather the Unipiper, will be there from 4 p.m. until 6 p.m.

The second beer will be released in August in conjunction with the return of the PDX Adult Soapbox Derby.

"I'm not giving up on Portland," Kidd says. "They smashed the window of my car and took my cycle, they didn't take my love of this place."