Go West Young Tex

I spent the summer wastin'

2010-06-29T07:20:00.001-07:00

I don't have any grand proclamations or interesting stories right now. What, with summer under way, I just haven't been much in the mood for blogging. I did go to Sun River this weekend which was just okay. It is in a pretty area (see above) but too wholesome-family-fun-resortish for my tastes. But it was a great place to see a triathlon. Stay tuned for more thrills.

Game of Pricks

2010-06-10T19:47:00.001-07:00

This has been a soggy intense week that culminated with my first argument live and in person before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. I am very happy with how it went and while it is always tough to win a case there for my clients, I can say that I optimized the situation. And so it goes. I worked a gazillion hours getting ready and am so glad it is over.

And as my reward, I found this hilarious video of Owen Pallett (Canadian Final Fantasy guy) covering the venerable indie rockers, Guided by Voices. He says he used to really like them but seeing them live was scary! I miss/don't miss being in the midwest for this reason. Because rock shows out of Dayton Ohio are rowdy and you never know when meathead guy is going to flip out and start hurling beers at the band. This has not happened in Portland on my watch.

Owen Pallett covers Guided By Voices

The hat tip for finding this goes to End Hits, which has an equally hilarious post about whether the Jimmy Eat World cover of this song is better than the original. Such a quandary.

Weather Report

2010-06-06T19:13:00.001-07:00

Sasquatch 2010

2010-06-01T21:33:00.001-07:00

I drove over 500 miles, slept on the ground for three days, and ate out of a cooler from items purchased at a Walmart because I have to rock! And that is just what happened at Sasquatch. After a lot of sun and wind, and not a lot of rest over the past several days, I will leave the detailed reviews of the shows to another writer. Imagine me, like a real sasquatch, pointing in the air and grunting the names of favorite shows from the weekend while jumping up and down: LCD Soundsystem!, Tune-Yards!, Nada Surf! Pavement! Avi Buffalo! And I was knocked out by the Vampire Weekend set and especially, most especially The New Pornographers. There is a deeply good thing that happens to my mind and body when I stand in front of the New Pornographers and they all sing The Bleeding Heart Show all at once in a loud and textured harmony.

The New Pornographers - My Rights versus Yours

I'm not going to tell you that camping for days with thousands of twenty-somethings is glamorous. But the music was great, and my brother and his wife came out from Texas, and we had a jolly excellent time and I dare say I would do it again.

Attention

2010-05-26T07:19:00.000-07:00

I don't complain until May

2010-05-25T22:40:00.000-07:00

But here we are in May, and the Portland weather can't manage to get above 60 and it rained every day this week. And most of last week. And it is supposed to rain next week. And be cold. No warm spring breezes. Lots of hail. The story goes that you can't count on the weather to be decent until Rose Parade, and then even then, not really reliably until the Fourth of July. The good news is that it doesn't start raining again until the beginning of October.

Black Rain, Black Rain - A.A. Bondy

When foodie passion attacks

2010-05-18T20:25:00.000-07:00

If it were April Fool's day, I would be rolling on the floor, but here we are in May. This weekend, Portland hosted a prestigious annual food event, the Cochon 555. I did not get to go, though every year I sort of want to. It is for charity, but it is spendy. It goes like this: 5 pigs, 5 chefs, 5 winemakers. There's a contest to see who made the best dinner. Everyone gets to taste. All the money goes to a hunger relief charity.

But the whole party got way out of hand and turned into a melee because a non-participating local chef went berserk. While ranting about "the need to support local farmers" and use local ingredients, he started head butting people. In a very Portland fashion, he was escorted out and directed to cool off in the strip club Magic Gardens, a few blocks away. But he was still so very very angry! You see, the Prince of Porc award had been given to Jason Barwikowski of Olympic Provisions and his pig was from IOWA! INJUSTICE! FLASH RIOT! With three of the five pigs originating from Oregon, the angry young chef was inconsolable- how could any pig other than a local Oregon pig have won the contest. It is an abomination!

And so, while still screaming about locally sourced food, he found the 555 event organizer at the Magic Gardens, broke his leg and gave him a concussion. As he attacked the organizer, he was reported to have yelled, "Food doesn't come from San Francisco, food comes from Portland!"

I am not making this up. Everyone can make fun of Portland foodie ways for as long as they want starting NOW.

Reaching the Beach

2010-05-17T20:28:00.000-07:00

I was more than a little nervous about getting on a bicycle and riding it 55 miles over the coastal range. I am quite glad that someone agreed to do it with me so that I could not back out. I did some training to get ready and held tight to the wild and crazy idea that I just might pull it off. Oh wow, was that an incredibly fun day and I would do it again right this very minute if somebody let me.

The whole excursion involved over 3000 cyclists and was put on by the American Lung Association. The route started in Portland (for those wanting to cycle 100 miles) and ended in Pacific City, Oregon. I hitched up my padded bicycle shorts and headed out at about 9:15am or so from Amity, Oregon and rode west through Sheridan (past the prison) Grand Ronde (past the indian reservation) up through the Siuslaw National Forest, and down the most exhilarating curving hills ever at 35 miles per hr? Not sure. I was going FAST. I wasn't worried since I had a helmet on. No problem. It was a gorgeous day and between the mountains and the farmland and forests and the ocean, the views and terrain were amazing.

After about 30 miles, my legs started to hurt like a bastard. Not muscle hurt so much as lactic acid crampy hurting. It went away about 30 minutes after I finished the ride. The old timers said it was because I did not have enough electrolytes and that I can "power through it." I'll work on that.

My favorite parts of the ride involved trying to keep up with the Lazy Tarantulas, pedaling past little waterfalls, and my friend yelling at cars in traffic to ask how fast we were going, according to their speedometers. OH YEAH and seeing the guy in the green spandex body suit who did the whole 100 mile ride on a unicycle.

The whole ride was to benefit the lung association, and it sure did feel nice to breathe all that clean air on my way down the road. My two inspirations for the ride were quitting smoking last year and going to my cousin's funeral after she died from a very fast moving lung cancer called mesothelioma. Bad business. She was just 22. The lung association is all over that problem, along with general air quality efforts. They are awesome. If you are so inclined, kick a few bucks towards my fundraising (it's not too late!) by making a tax deductible donation to the American Lung Association here.

Waypost

2010-05-14T07:22:00.000-07:00

There is the most darling little community space over on Williams called Waypost. It's not really a bar, and not really a coffee house, and not really a living room, but a lot like all three. I've been to a couple of readings there, and then last night I attended a history lecture of sorts called Northwest Passage. It was put on by the Dill Pickle Club, which is a quirky people's history buff's group. First, Calvin Johnson told us about the history of the Portland punk scene as he experienced it and how much he loved Clockwork Joe's. Next, Vanessa Renwick showed a film and recording from her House of Sound installation about an old record store that was torn down some years ago that was a bastion of groovy R&B excellence. And then it was late and I had to go and I missed the last speaker. Oh, and one of the guys who owns Voo Doo Doughnuts was right next to me and he is quite a unique person. He piped up a lot during the lecture and offered to fight someone who told him to stuff it. But he seems like his heart is in the right place and he's very Portland. Definitely one of the top 10 town kooks. I love town kooks. Maybe I can be one when I grow up.

Charlotte Gainsbourg

2010-05-10T22:44:00.000-07:00

Hi blog friend. I know I neglect you. Lots of interesting things have been happening but the thing I most long to tell you about was from a few weeks ago during my Week of Rock. I saw Eux Autres, Micachu and the Shapes, XX and some other bands all in one week. But the highlight was Charlotte Gainsbourg. Every French person in Portland was in attendance, along with the guy from the Shins and his model skinny girlfriend and Exene Cervenka who was standing right next to us. To look at, Charlotte Gainsbourg channeled Patti Smith. As a performer, she was more in the mode of Chan Marshall. Shy and quiet and moving through the song list in a workman like fashion. Kind of labored and awkward but very earnest, which made it nice. As if you criticized the understated way she occasionally tapped the snare in in front of her mic, a man in a beret would wheel around on you and berate your horrible American need to have Hannah Montana dance before you like a trained monkey. Spit. Anyways, it was really good to be there, not so much for the performance, but for every other out-of-place or quirky thing about it.

Charlotte Gainsbourg - Trick Pony

Iowa on a Saturday

2010-05-05T07:04:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I was hurtled through the air and transported to Minnesota/Iowa for a family wedding. My dad's side is from this area and so off into the heartland I descended. Here is what I can report.

-The people were a little bit friendlier in the midwest, not that Portland is unfriendly. But maybe my practice of shaking hands and grinning a lot when I meet people owes its origin to this region.

-People eat a lot of summer sausage in this part of the country. Way more than you would expect.

-The Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Highway is very very pretty in early May. That's the Little House on the Prairie lady.

-They light a lot of candles at Lutheran weddings and the proceedings are brief.

-In a twist of genetic destiny, it seems that all the athletic ability went to my Uncle Lyle and not to my dad. All of my cousins on that side went to college on athletic scholarships and all their kids are doing the same thing. These are great big hulking norwegian people. My second cousin Drew Clark is a linesman for the Iowa State Hawkeyes and very polite. His GPA was 4.12 and he benches 315 lbs. Look out world.

-Iowa isn't necessarily politically conservative. The motor hotel we stayed at had a framed picture of Obama and the hotel manager above the front desk, taken when Obama stayed there on the campaign trail. Much to my surprise, my dad still agreed to check in.

-In further service to my history mystery, I learned that my norwegian great grandparents were named Albert and Agnes Pederson and lived on a farm in northern Minnesota which is still in the family. Neat.

Monday in Ohio

2010-05-05T06:51:00.000-07:00

Columbus. Not entirely un-gay.

Live Wire!

2010-04-27T07:24:00.000-07:00

I have formed a minor and harmless addiction to going to Live Wire shows. It is a little like Prairie Home Companion perhaps, involving a radio show recorded before a live audience. Every week it seems to be at a different venue and Oregon Public Radio puts the show on and broadcasts it. It has variety acts, little skits, a couple of great musicians, and best of all, a really good poet. I am ever so fond of wordy modern American poetry delivered by its author. I have yet to find the "poetry scene" in Portland where I can reliably sit around in a beret while grooving to the poems of the locals, but Live Wire does the trick for me just as well. In the past couple of months, I saw Matthew Dickman and Derrick Brown read on the show. I am told the producers are very picky about which poets they choose. Good.

This week I went and did not get any poetry because instead, Live Wire had a bunch of comics on that were in town as part of the Bridgetown Comedy Festival. I do not have cable and am the last person on earth to hear of Maria Bamford and Tig Notaro. But I got to see them live and up close and that was a good introduction. The show also involves submitting an audience haiku based on the theme of the day and if they pick your haiku, you get to read it on the air. I'm going to keep going and writing haikus until it happens. If you are curious about this LiveWire business, episodes are free on itunes.
The photo above is Matthew Pidgeon's. He made me say it.

Squirrel Holler (or something like that)

2010-04-19T22:36:00.000-07:00

In my history mystery quest, I found out that one of my Danish great-grandmothers came to the United States around the turn of the century from a place called Eckernfoerde. It is in the peninsular part of northern Germany that connects to Denmark called Schleswig. Schleswig was a fiefdom of Denmark. Although this part of Denmark was considered part of Germany between 1864-1920, World War I resolved the issue, along with two other wars creatively titled First Schleswig War and Second Schleswig War. A little web research on why Danes were leaving Germany:

Denmark had been forced to surrender Schleswig to Prussia in 1864. Some 150,000 residents of North Schleswig were thoroughly Danish and many bitterly resented their area's new status. After Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, became Emperor of Germany in 1871, the policy of Prussia in Slesvig was essentially that of Germany. This meant the abolition of the Danish language in the schools and the conscription of young Danish men for the German military. Between 1864 and 1920, when North Schleswig was returned to Denmark as a result of a plebiscite following Germany's defeat in World War I, some 50,000 North Slesvigers immigrated to the United States. Ironically, most of these Danes appear in census statistics as immigrants from Germany rather than Denmark.

Fascinating. Although I guess Great Granny Hansen wasn't too flipped about it because she married my thoroughly German-named great-grandfather from the other side of the border (maybe near Hamburg), Fritz Droege. My great aunt told my mother he was bad news, whatever that means. At any rate, Great Granny Hansen spoke Danish along with my grandfather and his brothers, and she told the Census man she was Danish when he came around asking. Regarding the Schleswig Question, perhaps they all had an extra helping of aquavit (just before prohibition) when the matter was finally put to rest, placing Eckernfoerde on the German side in 1920.

But as veritable proof that these must be the ancestors of my homeland, I learned that the official crest of the town of Eckernfoerde (pictured above) is the squirrel. The sort of squirrel that stands on top of a castle on top of water. This must be my spirit animal. Eckernfoerde roughly translates as squirrel (eckern) and fjord (foerde), which is a bit like a holler. Squirrel Holler.

What if there was a submarine from Eckenforde that was full of squirrels? I can't understand the Russian over-dub of this video, but I think they have zeroed in on the question:

The Children's Hour

2010-04-14T23:49:00.000-07:00

The xx are from the UK and have a minimalist thing happening so there was a reasonable chance they were going to infiltrate my music collection one way or another. Tonight, I went to the big show with a pal to see them play live. They made a very interesting first record that is terribly whispery and off-the-cuff cool. I was skeptical of seeing them at the gigantic venue. The only problem was the crowd, so much as I can tell.

I pointed out to my friend that we were likely the oldest people in the room and she pointed out that it means we would have more basic space in the 21 and over designated area. For those readers outside of Oregon, its a double wide ropeline institution here that gets the youngsters in the door and against the stage while the liquor and beer is dispensed in a separate area back from the stage a bit more. The bifurcated grownups area was just more obnoxious from what I could tell. I heard a young woman with high maintenance hair say that she really hasn't curled it to go out since she was on dance team. She said it like I might say I haven't really worn a vest with a short sleeve shirt since the last time I shot pool at Cafe San Marcos.

But the XX were soft and charming. There was a coordinated light show that went along with the music that took me right on back to seeing Disintegration Tour on a warm May night in Dallas. Stacatto guitars and black clothes and thought-about-it song craft.

XX- Basic Space

XX - VCR

.

2010-04-14T06:47:00.000-07:00

I'm in the midst of a mystery history hunt. My mother mentioned some years ago that my great grandparents lived in Portland for a little while and that my grandmother ran a hotel and coffee shop someplace near the train station. Finding out about that has been on my to-do list for some time and this week I finally started looking into it.

According to the 1910 Census Record, my great-grandparents spoke German and Danish, were recent immigrants, and had two children. One was Victor and the other was listed as "Baby Droege." That would have been my grandfather. When the census people came around on April 17, 1910, he was just 9 days old and maybe they hadn't settled on a name yet. They spoke Danish at home and had a hotel that was lodging some theater performers, a swedish family, and telegraph and telephone engineers on the day of the recording. The sheet says the place was on Sixth Street and there is no Sixth Street in Portland's downtown now. I am going to go to the historical society so that I can look at old maps and hopefully figure out just where this place was and the name of it. I also found out that my grandfather is buried in Portland at the Willamette National Cemetery, pictured above.
Stay tuned!

2010-04-07T07:23:00.001-07:00

Astoria Scum River Bridge from Jason Eppink on Vimeo.

Astoria, Queens, not Astoria, Oregon.

Runaways

2010-04-05T22:31:00.000-07:00

I knew about Joan Jett when I was a kid at the Skate Ranch roller skating rink, but I did not know of The Runaways until later. Tonight I went to the movie premiere in Portland to benefit the Rock n Roll Camp for Girls and Cherrie Currie from the band was there, which was pretty brave since the movie is somewhat about her personal destruction and drugged out lameness, followed by getting clean and becoming a chainsaw artist. She did an interesting Q and A afterwards and the movie was okay but sort of uncomfortable because it was about exploiting 15 year old girls as sex objects. And in telling that story they used 15 year old girl actresses and exploited them as sex objects. But after the screening there was a raffle! The winner got to meet Joan Jett at a nearby indian casino later this month. Speaking of which, one of the ways I can definitely tell i am getting older is that suddenly the casinos are booking musicians that I would like to see. The AARP and a Liz Phair musical at Chinook Winds are next. I have never been to Las Vegas but could be talked into it if Guided by Voices was going to be there.

My month in rock

2010-03-31T07:26:00.000-07:00

What have I been up to lately? Well, I got a road bike in hopes of becoming one of those people in Portland that goes on epic bike trips. Even with my shiny new wheels, it is harder than it looks. I will keep trying and report back. I admit this month was not much for correspondence, but it is only because I have been busy. Let me recap:

Acid Mother Temple: Japanese psychedelic noise rock band requiring earplugs and good humor. It was a completely sold out show full of serious rock and roll geeks. So incredibly loud and idiosyncratic and great.

Tune-yards- I know people who know people and got to chit chat with Merle before her show. I had heard some of the music before but didn't really get what she was up to with all the tape loops and complicated harmonies and compositions until I saw it live. New favorite. Yodeling. Really.

Tune-yards- FIYA

Explode into Colors and Quasi- So this show was also totally sold out at the Doug Fir. Both the bands have been on tour together and just got back and after broken vans and unpredictable Texas weather. Explode into Colors explained that they had also been suffering from something called the "morrissey flu." The symptoms are feeling kind of achy and self loathing, but also secretly thinking you are the shit. After all that touring and playing the band was incredibly tight. I was reading a few other reviews and my favorite sum up is, "this is the music we need to elevate from the underground." The band is playing a show with Spoon next and about to get famous, though right now they only have an EP on their website. Goosebump giving percussive goodness, and they don't sound like anyone else. I asked out loud at the show, "Where do they come up with this stuff? Mars?"

Explode into Colors - Paper

RIP Alex Chilton

2010-03-18T10:43:00.000-07:00

Yelapa

2010-03-14T11:14:00.000-07:00

I just spent the last week tucked away in the remote Mexican coastal village of Yelapa. No computers, no cars, lots of tacos, donkeys, various insects, isolated beaches, and excellent company. We rented a place at Casas Isabel which amounted to an arrangement of cement platforms covered by palm fronds that some might call a casita, but I thought of as a vast jungle porch. We had a kitchen, an outdoor shower, a hammock, scorpion issues, and a fantastic view of the Pacific ocean. I read the short stories of ZZ Packer and hiked to a waterfall way out in the countryside. Bromeiliad air plants hung from the trees above the falls and we went splashing in the swimming hole there and climbed on the boulders.

The next day we had an amazing fish lunch in a tiny ever-more isolated village called Pizota. We played volleyball at the escuelita in a hard-fought, unexpected USA v. Mexico contest announced by the town's teacher. We hung out on a gorgeous isolated beach, all to ourselves, except for a guy repairing a fishing net in front of his casa. Later we took a boat trip out to the Marietta Islands where we ate ceviche on the beach, snorkeled, and observed the blue footed booby. There wasn't much to buy or too much to spend money on in the little town but we had a great time going to the little food tiendas for farm fresh eggs in the mornings on our way to the town's tortilla factory. Breakfast, swimming, reading, tacos, sleeping, repeat.

Vendela Vida - Dinosaur Feathers

He is making cups

2010-03-04T22:02:00.000-08:00

I came across an interesting artist tonight named Ehren Tool. He makes cups. I didn't actually come across him, or his actual cups, but a depiction of a performative work. It was at the Museum of Contemporary Craft and involved 1) a letter from Ehren to Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, a defense contractor, etc, explaining that he was a marine for several years during the first Gulf War and that he had made them a cup. The letter also contained a personal statement to the subject of the letter about the prudence of war; and 2) a picture of the cup he made and sent to the subject; and 3) a letter from Karl Rove, John Negreponte, etc, thanking him for the cup and his service in the United States Marines. Each of the three part letter/picture/response sets were framed together and he had at least 7 or 8 of them on display. The cups looked like they were terracotta and some had the presidential seal stamped into them and some had a relief of bombs and what not. In a few of the letters, he mentioned that the cup is food safe. This work was part of a larger exhibit at the Museum that is going to range over several months and is very ambitious called Gestures of Resistance. Looks like Ehren will be in Portland throwing his cups in June and I can go meet him.

Wallowa

2010-03-01T21:29:00.000-08:00

Way the heck out in the northeastern most corner of Oregon lays the Wallowa County. I had the pleasure this weekend of being invited to a big fun party there called the Thrift Store Formal that involved a lot of beautifully decked out local yahoos whooping it up and carrying on. I met a retired 60's go-go dancer turned jazz drummer, a butcher, a documentarian, a baker, a brewer, a sheep rancher, and a modern day fur trapper. Earlier in the day, the fur trapper was messing around with a grinder or some metal equipment and got a piece of metal up under his eye. We helped him out in a minor procedure that involved one person holding his eyelid open while the other held a giant magnet over his face until the metal flew out. This was the first time I ever pulled a piece of metal out of a fur trapper's eyeball but I had rookie luck and it was a success. I also got to go hiking up Chief Joseph trail to one of the prettiest spots I've ever visited. It was near Wallowa Lake, below Eagle Cap, along a mountain creek that had carved out tunnels through the snow pack. I had chicken fried steak for dinner. I played with a new born baby goat. I am very much looking forward to getting out there again, perhaps this summer with a donkey to carry my tent and frying pan.

2010-02-20T08:37:00.000-08:00

Nicole Reynolds- "call the guard" performing in the western pennsylvania snow on a traveling pump organ in january, 2009.

winter games

2010-02-16T05:59:00.001-08:00

California Weirdness

2010-02-06T16:33:00.001-08:00

I was in California this week and stumbled upon this van sitting near a vacuum repair shop. I fancy myself well-schooled in various conspiracy theories but I had no idea that Stephen King had anything to do with the CIA. This disturbing realization was mitigated by my trip to the Charles Schultz Museum. It featured an exhibit on the history of newspaper comics from way back. I saw a few old classics that were still in publication when I was a little kid and read the funnies. I was close to forgetting about Prince Valiant and the Wizard of Id. As for Peanuts, I'm pretty sure I read all of them in books that my Aunt Maxine used to send to me. I had also forgotten how Peanuts could get sort of intellectual. He ran a strip in 1978 referring to Christo in which Snoopy's dog house was wrapped in fabric. The artists sent the museum the real thing. I saw it on the second floor.

From my office window

2010-02-01T23:46:00.001-08:00

I'm going to be able to lean to the left and spy an ugly old federal building with a verdant new facade. Its been getting national press. I saw something a lot like it, though smaller, in a few towns in France last summer such as the central market in Avignon and perhaps Nimes. A lot of the talk around here, or in the news seems to be about the cost of the vertical greenery, whether it is a good method of insulation, etc etc. I think it is art and it is high time that the United States Government did something interesting with architecture. It has been a damn long while since the WPA.

Tweed Ride!

2010-01-31T09:46:00.000-08:00

Oxford shirt, sweater vest, vintage tie, herringbone pants, argyle socks, cap with ear flaps, canvas jacket. This is how I attired myself for the Tweed Ride yesterday. It was a parade of biking woolens, ladies in hats, vintage bicycles, and deep Portland weirdness. We started out at Skidmore Fountain with about 200 riders and then went to the Overlook Park house for tea. Really good tea, with scones to go along. Lots of folks had wicker and leather bicycle baskets outfitted with picnic materials and I spotted a few proper bone china tea cups in the crowd, held atop bicycle, with pinkie up. Next we rode on to Laurelhurst Park where we had a fashion show complete with awards, as depicted below. I'm somewhere in the crowd...

Oh my god, Herman the Sturgeon!

2010-01-25T22:34:00.000-08:00

There's a giant giant white Sturgeon that is over 70 yrs old at the Bonneville Dam fishery! You can look at it in an underground viewing area for free. This is the most fun you can have on a rainy day in Oregon. I hit this tourist spot on the way back from cabin camping up at the Government Mineral Springs Guard Station. Very interesting to stay in a place that is all lit with built-in propane gas lamps, dark even the the day because it is surrounded by deep, thick, mossy forest. We hiked up Bunker Hill, ran around in the woods for a few days and played Scattergories. I was not gotten by a trampling Roosevelt Elk or avalanche. I learned that the whistle punk is a novice lumberjack that is supposed to blow the whistle if something bad is about to happen. I learned how to split firewood with an axe. Rugged.

Awwww

2010-01-20T23:20:00.000-08:00

It isn't just because I saw Faye Dunaway at a vietnamese place last night, or that the Gossip played a secret show, or that it stopped raining in time for me to walk home. No, the number one reason I love Portland today is because I went to a one-of-a-kind mindblowing show at Holocene. It was a benefit of sorts for Tom Tom magazine, which is all about female drummers. Boy do they have a lot of great female drummers in Portland. The women performed in pairs and played songs they composed for the drums. And I brought my earplugs, which I usually forget but not tonight. There was a little bit of singing and a little bit of xylophone, but mostly the beat ruled the night. Rachel Blumberg (M.Ward, Norfolk & Western) with Julianna Bright (Golden Bears), Sara Lund (unwound, Hungry Ghost), Tara Jane O’neil, Janet Weiss, Emily Kingan (Lovers, The Haggard), Emily Baker, LKN with Terrica (Palo Verde), Lisa Schonberg of Explode into Colors, sts of The Haggard, Ashey Spungin (Purple Rhinestone Eagle) with Justine Valdez (Lozen) and the Brooklyn band Hot Box. I did not see all the acts. I saw a lot of them. The Rachel Blumberg/Juilanna Bright piece was especially and insanely beautiful.

Thank You for Making Soul Night Special

2010-01-16T16:33:00.000-08:00

I am a VIP. On Thursday night I did one of my all time favorite Portland things which is to go to Hole in my Soul night at Rotture. This week was special for two very bad ass reasons: 1) Ian Svenonius was the guest DJ. 2) The regular DJ and brilliant founder of Hole in my Soul Night, DJ Beyonda, called bullshit on the night fading into some plain old dance party scene where people don't get where she's coming from. She's spinning one of the greatest working collections of Sixties soul 45s on the west coast people! So she imposed a dress code and I was thrilled because that meant I got to wear a skinny little tie and a tie clip like a real mod. We walked right in like we owned the place. We didn't even have to pay! I wish this was the reception my cross dressing engendered in the rest of the world. Red carpets and guest list treatment suit me fine.

The dancing was great, the music was spectacular, and the crowd was lovely and dressed to kill. And when I saw DJ Beyonda I thanked her for taking the party back from the forces of the mundane and she gave me a VIP pass card that says Thank You For Making Soul Night Special. Its just about my most prized possession other than the little burnt hunk of the Waco Branch Davidian Compound that I keep on my dresser.

Blanchet House

2010-01-12T23:20:00.000-08:00

In the old town part of Portland, near the train station, there are about five square blocks that are frequently occupied by down-on-their-luck homeless adults. On a particular corner on Glisan Street, I am accustomed to seeing a queue of bundled up cold-looking people waiting in line. This saturday I found out that the line was for Blanchet House, a "hospitality house" as I was told, that serves three square meals a day to anyone looking for something to eat. A friend from a lawyer group that I'm in suggested that we go and volunteer and help serve a dinner shift. So that's what happened (and I took my mom). I think we turned out about 250 plates of bread, stew, salad, fruit and really good looking cookies donated by Zupans.

There's something very satisfying to me about feeding people, whether it be to friends out of my own kitchen, or strangers in someone else's kitchen. That the Blanchet House was serving pretty decent healthy fare made it all the nicer. Later that night, completely unrelated, I was treated to a great dinner in the home of a local french chef. He is the honest to goodness real thing, and even apprenticed in a Michelin-starred Parisian restaurant many years ago. Thank you karma. Everything was good, but the basque beans are what I'm still thinking about. In September, he threw a huge party at his restaurant in honor of the basque chile that goes in the recipe. As he explained, every fall in the small village of Espelette in the French Basque country, over 20,000 chile fanatics meet to celebrate the Piment d’Espelette. I politely asked the chef for seconds because the beans were so good.

Weekend of Winter Wonder

2010-01-07T19:55:00.000-08:00

My mother is going to be here any minute, in town for a Mary Kay function, staying for the weekend. I had a massage today and tried to relax. I don't ever go get massages but I think I might be coming around.

I'm going to try and take my mom snowshoeing up on Mt. Hood. I learned to snowshoe recently. (Not like it is some major achievement or something. I mean, it is just walking. I know). Maybe we will see the abominable snowman. Which begs the question, at least for me, what the snowman did that is so abominable. Usery? Buggery? Playing peruvian flute music? Cheating at cards? According to this article, it is because the yeti smelled bad. Lesson learned.

The Old Graveyard - Karl Blau (I fixed the bunk link)

Hello 2010.

2010-01-04T20:33:00.000-08:00

There's a whole lot of shakin going on in the house of Tex this holiday season and I have had nary a moment to catch my breath and be terribly reflective about passing a decade. Here's what I can say for sure: I didn't get a tattoo. I quit smoking. Music makes everything better. Good friends are really important. I'm vulnerable and imperfect. I'm mostly glad I spent the last 10 yrs busting ass at work so I can spend the next 10 years fine-tuning balance and stretching to wrest just a little more fun out of my week.

Look at Miss Ohio - Blind Pilot (Gillian Welch cover)

The Short Way Home - The Builders and the Butcher

My favorite popular culture moment of the aughts:

Vic Chesnutt

2009-12-28T08:51:00.000-08:00

I have listened to his songs, off one record in particular (West of Rome), probably once a week since my friend Jason gave it to me in college in 1992. Of all the musicians I love, he was the most poetic and hard working on his songcraft. Very sorry to hear he died.

Xmas Adventures

2009-12-24T13:05:00.000-08:00

I am having a very Christmasy Christmas so far, albeit without family or any religious observation whatsoever. Somehow not longing for my Texas childhood of having to sit at the feet of a gasbag to hear the book of Matthew read aloud so that the next morning I could open gifts purchased at the Christian bookstore at the mall.

No, this holiday season is something altogether different. I got to go to a cabin up on Mt. Hood for a the solstice and hang out in a hot tub surrounded by spectacularly tall Douglas Fir trees. I got my scrabble on. I went snowshoeing around Trillium Lake. I nearly missed my train to Seattle to see my friends but re-arranged my ticket (I love Amtrak) and got to go to Wilf's for excellent old-school holiday drinks. The train to Seattle was significantly delayed. The conductor came on the loud speaker midway in Kelso to apologize for the late hour, but that "we had to stop to eject an intoxicated passenger" and in case anyone else got any ideas "we do notice when intoxication levels are bothering other riders."

I arrived safely, eventually, at the destination.

And on that note, here's a vintage clip of a very intoxicated Judy Garland pleading that you not break up with her despite the fact that she can't stay away from booze and pills, or get out of her chair to sing while on Johnny Carson. Ho Ho Ho.

Not to be missed bonus feature. Judy Garland drunken tirade:

http://wfmu.org/flashplayer.php?version=2&show=34075&archive=57636&starttime=0:38:08

Bowling Night

2009-12-20T19:16:00.000-08:00

When I was 16 years old, my most prized possession was a vintage black bowling shirt that I got on a trip to New York City at the Antique Boutique. The name "Stan" is stitched above the pocket, it identifies the wearer as an "alley master" and I have kept it with me over the course of about 27 different closets. On Thursday night, it saw the light of day again. I'm pretty sure I hadn't worn it in 10 years. But dammit, I had an occasion. My upstairs neighbor is in a bowling league and a few of the members were tragically unable to attend that night's match. I was the filler. The ringer. The right girl at the right place in the right shirt.

I am not much of a bowler and I'm pretty sure I have never scored more than 100 in a game. That's okay though because the people watching was ON FIRE at the bowling alley! How about guys in denim shorts? (it is really cold out). What if those same guys had their cellphones attached to special carrying cases on the belts of those jean shorts? That's great because you know that those guys are reachable, even if they are bowling. The phone is right there. You can call whenever. They might say yellow instead of hello when they answer.

One of the players on my team was nicknamed The Heat (so stated on the computerized bowling scorecard). He had bright red hair and threw the ball down the lane with insane velocity. Each time he did this I screamed, "THE HEAT!!!" whether he guttered or not. Another guy in the league was bowling in a viking helmet but I did not get to talk to him.

The particular team I was playing on was said to be the goat of the league: last place, the Montreal Expos of thursday night bowling teams. This meant that we were not able to earn enough strikes to get a coupon for free tater tots at the snack bar. We had to buy our own, which was humiliating. None the less, we had spirit. Over the course of the evening, I got the impression that this bowling league wasn't so much about becoming the next Dick Weber. The bowling was a thin charade masking a heterosexual mating ritual and hence the reason the teams needed the right ratios of men and women. So I hope I wasn't annoying anyone when I pointed out that everyone was just talking and people forgot to go when it was their turn.

Cyclocross

2009-12-15T08:27:00.001-08:00

My fun and exciting weekend included traveling to Bend, OR to see the National Cyclocross championships. Here, pictured above, is a photo I took of the women's collegiate race. I think this rider is Ashley James. And that's the Last Regiment of Syncopated Drummers behind her, playing their hearts out in the cold and keeping the beat for all the racers.

Staying tuned...

2009-12-10T06:58:00.001-08:00

There's something stirring in Yellow Springs. Hoping it isn't a psych out.

Hibernating

2009-12-08T07:28:00.001-08:00

This is what the Willamette River looks like right now. This is waiting-for-the-L-in-Chicago cold. Bitter, windy where-is-my-hat-dammit cold. And so I am hibernating and planning to cook stew and just not doing a lot of the exciting things that you may have come to expect from me. Because it is too dark and blustery for that.

2009-12-04T10:57:00.000-08:00

Honey, I'm home.

2009-12-01T17:06:00.000-08:00

Okay well sorry for that extended absence. A whole hell of a lot has been going on, a little travel to the midwest, and this and that. Okay, well, then let's sally forth.

Trial

2009-11-16T19:39:00.000-08:00

I'm in trial and away from this blog for the time being. Send magical justice vibes to the Federal Courthouse please.

Beast

2009-11-12T23:01:00.000-08:00

"If we aren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made of meat?" This is scrawled on the back wall of Beast, which I have wanted to check out ever since I moved to Portland. Finally got the chance last night for a little Veteran's Day special somethingorother. So here's the deal: The chef, Naomi Pomeroy, decides what she'll be cooking. It's two big tables and one big prix fixe, no substitutions and big on the creative use of meats. And then with very well thought out vegetables too. Paired with wine if you'd like. We did. The menu went something like this: delicata squash soup with something, maybe fried prosciutto in the middle and a green herbed olive oil bit of float on top and then this very amazing charcuterie plate with all manner of little meat treats and a gummy bear looking sauterne gel square atop foie gras. Then a little sorbet, and then a beet salad of some variety and then slow cooked pork with spicy russian kale greens. And then a cheese course. And then dessert. Something with quince. Between the wine and the good music and then nice company I was delirious in foodie heaven and everything after the sauce that came with the pork is a bit of a glazed over fuzzy/happy/faulty recollection. It was the late seating on a Wednesday night and we seemed to be surrounded by people in the food business: a pastry chef to the left, a sommelier across. Carnivore dividends.

P.S. The great picture above was taken by Alicia J. Rose, who let me gank this image of Naomi and pig. Thanks.

Siren Nation

2009-11-09T07:02:00.000-08:00

This weekend was the Siren Nation music festival here in town, which mostly involved staking out the under appreciated Someday Lounge. The line up was through-and-through amazing. My highlights were Emily Wells and Y La Bamba. And everyone else.

Emily Wells - Symphony 6: Fair Thee Well & The Requiem Mix

Y La Bamba - Fasting in San Francisco

I did a wee bit of helping out to put this thing on and it is right up my alley in terms of the lady-centric music scene. There was also a craft fair and a film festival as part of it. The festival hosts events all year long to raise money to pay the musicians. That is most of the budget for the festival since it is produced purely as a volunteer effort to promote women making music and art. Who doesn't like that? I know I do.

Drunken Frenchman Opens Wine Bottle with Shoe

2009-11-07T13:54:00.000-08:00

How to Make Grape Jelly

2009-11-02T20:14:00.000-08:00

1. Put Etta James on your car stereo.
2. Drive to the Willamette Valley
3. Stop for pork stomach tacos at La Estrella in Forest Grove.
4. Get to Gaston. Slow down because it is a speed trap.
5. Park the car and walk into the vineyard (having ingratiated yourself with the owners).
6. Fill a big Trader Joe's bag with pinot noir grapes from the unusually robust second growth this year.
7. Go home. Find some pectin and jars.
8. Smash the grapes with your bare hands and strain off the juice.
9. Swipe rosemary from a neighbor's yard. Put big sprigs in the juice to steep.
10. Boil a habanero pepper and put some of the liquid in the pectin.
11. Follow the directions on the pectin box for grape jelly.
12. Get distracted. Forget the sugar. Repeat step 11.

Favorite Things

2009-10-28T22:51:00.001-07:00

So yeah, I am behind on the updates here. Rest assured dear reader, I promise I am having an ungodly good time. Last Friday, in fact, a friend swooped me up to the tippy-top of Portland, known as Council Crest. I had no idea that is was up there, or that it is so close to my house, or that if you stand in the middle of the circular platform and your friend whispers "Millennium Crystal" in your ear, that everything reverberates and echoes in a very specific way. So now I know. And if the lights of Portland are twinkling down the hill just so, then you really believe that there is a millennium crystal laying about somewhere up on the hill. There used to be an amusement park up there way back in the day.

The next day I went to a Portland/Amsterdam printing event and then an epic hike on foot way up the hill above my house and discovered fancy Portland Heights, which I did not know existed. I eventually found Council Crest again.

Sons of an Illustrious Father - Born Too Late

That's What I Heard

2009-10-25T10:42:00.000-07:00

Saw the Gossip the other night and it was like a big gay homecoming dance. I have zero time to blog right now my lovelies. See entry below about suggestive photo arrays. Dig?

Upon having gotten down and stayed down...

2009-10-22T07:41:00.000-07:00

Last night I saw Thao and the Get Down Stay Down play at the Doug Fir. My is that a great band. And Thao is such and effortless guitar player. She does all of this complicated, emotional playing and it just pours out of her hands like nothing. Its like she's not even paying attention, because she's busy singing and doing this little dance, and it is just about the most entertainment that I can stand. Certainly a feast for a measly Wednesday night in Portland. So the band is in the middle of a busy busy busy tour and they may be coming to a venue near you, in which case you should make a point to go.

Thao and the Get Down Stay Down - When We Swam

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Send coffee.

2009-10-20T07:19:00.000-07:00

It is going to be one of those go-to-work-in-the-dark/come-home-in-the-dark kinds of work weeks.

Woven Bones - If You're Gold I'm Gone

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Circus

2009-10-18T12:04:00.001-07:00

But I don't even like clowns. Not even a little bit. And despite this, I went to something called Circus Artemis with a friend last night and found myself actually chuckling at the clowns and the comedic acrobats and so forth. It was an all-female circus performance, totally packed, and held in an industrial warehouse with huge ceilings. There were a lot of trapeze acts but the most impressive thing I saw was a woman who hoisted herself around on a platform with posts on it, sort of like a pommel horse without the horse. She was incredibly strong and at the end, shot a bow and arrow with her feet while doing a handstand on top of the posts. Hard to explain, amazing to see. I hope they take their show in the road. Wow.

Dirtbombs!

2009-10-17T14:07:00.001-07:00

This is what I am doing right now, except it is raining and gray in Portland, and the show is in a dirty dark dive bar at 3pm in the afternoon. Everything else is exactly as you see it here:

Art in Chelsea

2009-10-14T23:19:00.000-07:00

On tuesday I walked around Chelsea looking at a whole lot of art. And the winners are:

1. For worst pictures to see after lunch, the award goes to Manabu Yamanaka! (Applause). His work supposedly deals with his Buddhism, according to the flyer at Stux Gallery. The flyer also emphasized that Yamanaka does not digitally manipulate his photos. This made the work more unnerving to look at. Mr. Stefan Stux was there giving a gallery lecture and answered a question for a tour group, explaining that these works were so disturbing as to not be commercially viable. And he obviously loves this photographer and you could tell by the way he talked about it.

2. Best use of 2x4s and romex and particle board goes to Maya Lin. Give it up for Maya! Her show at Pace Wildenstein had three different landscape sculptures and geez, what can I say. Her work is really simple and really startling at the same time.

3. The award for the most jarring commentary on the horror of misogyny goes to Kara Walker for her piece about a 13 year old Somali girl who was stoned to death for being raped. Turns out that Artforum wrote something about it, which I would rather have you read yourself instead of going through the trauma of detailing this intense and scary piece of art. Glad I saw it. Can't stop thinking about it. Ready to stop now.

4. And best drug addled free love retrospective goes to Dennis Hopper for his black and white photographs from the 1960s and 70s of all manner of counterculture fun. I was struck by how many interesting men he happened to be friends with to photograph and how soulful and stunning they looked through his viewfinder. Not sure how free the love was, but he sure knew how to make a fella gaze into his camera.

In NYC

2009-10-12T06:56:00.000-07:00

So here's what I can report: it's open house weekend at a lot of the New York landmarks, just in time for my visit. And so I went up to the Apollo Theater for a look around. The historian for the theater was there and gave a lecture all about the background, what Amateur Night is all about (since 1934!) and all the famous performers who have graced the stage. I got to rub the lucky stump, which is like the blarney stone of soul music.

I also did some shopping, and thank you, I talked myself out of getting the purple skinny jeans. Bought some great shoes instead. Had dinner at Bar Boulud. Walked and walked and walked. Checked out the Highline, which is a park built on an old elevated railroad track. It offers a comprehensive view of the meatpacking district, which is no longer the gritty foul smelling puddle that I remember from my stint living here in the early 90's. And today, I get to go up to Inwood to see my friend's cafe. Less blogging, more travel, starting now...

Suggestive Photo Arrays

2009-10-07T22:27:00.001-07:00

I have spent the better part of the last two days writing a motion to suppress an "improperly suggestive photo array." That is actually not as pornographic as one might think. In a nutshell, it is the problem that witnesses have picking out the right criminal from a photo line up when they say they think the guy had a mohawk, and then they are shown a photographic array with six mugshots that includes only one guy with a mohawk. The other five guys have other haircuts. So that's suggestive because it prompts the witness to pick the guy with the mohawk based on that distinguishing feature rather than whether she can actually identify and distinguish the face of the person she saw. That's unconstitutional, a violation of due process, and in English: Unfair. There are a lot of false identifications made using this method such as problems with witnesses who feel compelled to make a choice among the six pictures in the array even if they aren't sure. And the problems are greater when you have something akin to the one-mohawk-issue. Anyways, that's what I'm working on.

Pictures of Matchstick Men - Camper Van Beethoven

The Evidence, The Proof - The Movers and Shakers

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Cooking

2009-10-07T07:43:00.000-07:00

I am on a cooking tear and have the following revelation to report: making vegetable stock is the best thing ever and it is delicious. I think Mark Bittman is kind of snobbish or something, or maybe I am sore about him slagging on the Portland food scene when he visited recently. But in any case, I very generally (not really) followed his simple vegetable stock recipe and I now I have an unexpected zeal for this humble liquid. Here's what I did:

Vegetable Stock

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
1 onion, roughly cubed
1 celery stalk, chopped
3 peeled cloves garlic
10 or 20 flat-leaf parsley leaves and stems
Kosher Salt and pepper
6 cups of water

1. So I put everything except the parsley onto a baking sheet. I drizzled it all with the olive oil. I put the veggies into the oven on high heat for about 20 minutes until it was getting a little browned and carmelized on the edges of the carrots.

2. I took the veggies out of the oven and dumped them into a stock pot. Added the water, added the parsley, added 6 cups water and some pepper.

3. Brought it to a boil and then simmered for about 45 minutes.

4. I strained off the soggy vegetables and Ta-Da! Amazingly tasty!

and also there is Rat Tail to consider

2009-10-01T22:32:00.000-07:00

Found a new Canadian band from Canada. Rat Tail!!!! They drone along in a way that I like.

Keeper - Rat Tail

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Update: I found Rat Tail on www.unnecessaryumlaut.com which is out of California and muses on good music, among other things.

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sweet sixteen

2009-10-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

Sweet Sixteen - Think About Life This song is stuck in my head. That is all.

Definitely Fall

2009-09-30T20:43:00.000-07:00

They are picking the grapes in the Willamette Valley this week. I know because I had to drive down to the federal prison on the first really truly gray and windy day. The September segue is finished. And so tonight is all about walking home from work while the sun was long gone, wishing I had a heavier jacket, roasting a chicken in my apartment, and listening to Mount Eerie in one ear, and calling my friends with the other.

Flaming Home - Mount Eerie, Julie Dorion, Fred Squire

Stone's Ode - Mount Eerie

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Benefits

2009-09-26T19:07:00.000-07:00

My mother is in town and so I have not had much time to write this week. What I can tell you is that my parade of fun continues, I finished another brief for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a habeas case, and a huge plastic horse now keeps watch over my apartment from atop the china cabinet. And I went to a bunch of benefits this weekend for P:ear, Siren Nation, and Ecotrust's Farm to Schools program. More later, I swear.

This is your government

2009-09-25T11:46:00.001-07:00

Arresting a protester at Pittsburg G20.

and the rock did not stop

2009-09-21T23:07:00.001-07:00

Wow! So much excitement! I was clearly overstimulated, such that I dropped my phone into pieces while running across MLK. I was trying to catch the bus to see Mariachi El Bronx, but sadly, missed them because I was standing in the middle of MLK looking for parts of my blackberry. I heard the car horns instead of the mariachis. I eventually gave up and made my way to see Sallie Ford and Sean Flinn play at Rontoms in separate, respective and outstanding sets. And there was just enough time to scarf down some noodles at Biwa before we went rushing off to Slabtown for Rachel Blumberg playing as Arch Cape. I wasn't dressed for just any rock show though. No, I was in a purple plaid shirt because Team Dresch and Erase Errata were playing at Rotture later and I pretty much had the best time ever. First off, Erase Errata is One Tight Band. I just got their record because it is never too late. As for Donna's team, it's not so often that I can sing along to all the songs and it is even more fun when done at the top of one's lungs at a punk show. I can still holler out the lyrics to #1 Chance Pirate T.V. like a baby dyke in 1995. That's how it was.

Erase Errata - Tax Dollar

and then at MFNW

2009-09-20T21:37:00.000-07:00

and on Friday night, the cavalcade of great music kept rolling: I saw Tara Jane O'Neil do a very fine set at Back Space then popped next door to hear Jared Mees and The Grown Children. Exceptionally entertaining. Wish I could have stayed. But I had to take the bus across the river to see Explode into Colors. And then Pink Mountaintops. And then to a late-night party at 17th NW and Overton where The Thermals played a special set and Dj Safi played my favorite song about sandwiches. Way fun.

Jared Mees & The Grown Children - The Tallest Building in Hell

Detroit Grand Pubahs - Sandwiches

MFNW continuing

2009-09-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

So I made my decisions like so: I went to the shows that I thought were the toughest tickets. So if the band was from a foreign land (like Austrailia or Scotland) or otherwise too crazy for me to want to go to another time, then that's what I picked. SO MUCH DAMN FUN. Girl Talk first. Was definitely one of the oldest people in the room and watched a guy climb all over a table with laptops taped to it while girls weilded leaf blowers rigged to shoot toilet paper into the audience. Absolute dance party mayhem.

Then I went and saw Dirty Three. They are a dirge-y sort of instrumental band from Austrailia who make you want to take a quart of whiskey onto a sailboat on a cloudy day. Just super emotive, soaring stuff. A friend recently saw them perform with Nick Cave at All Tomorrow's Parties in New York but it was just the three of them this time.

THEN I got to see Frightened Rabbit, a dear bunch of Scottish guys. I can't explain why I go so bonkers for Frightened Rabbit but they are so great and unassuming live. (and sweaty).

I'm going to post some music later on this evening to go with this post, but I suppose I should practice law just now.

Update: Here's the first batch...

Dirty Three - Distant Shore

Girl Talk - Bounce That

Frightened Rabbit - The Modern Leper

Too Much Rock Thursday

2009-09-17T08:07:00.000-07:00

MusicFestNorthWest is on, my people. I am running from show to show all weekend (or probably riding my bike if you must know). Tonight I have to PICK, I can't believe I have to PICK between Dirty Three, Girltalk, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Explosions in the Sky, Frightened Rabbit and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. They are all playing at the same damn time in different clubs.

Idiocy on Parade

2009-09-15T07:04:00.000-07:00

For those of you who could not make it to the tea-bagger march on Washington this weekend, here are some protest signs to make your head explode.

Road Trip to the Mountains

2009-09-13T11:31:00.000-07:00

Went on a little roadtrip to a wedding yesterday and got to see a new part of Oregon. West of Corvallis in the Coastal Range, down that way. My friends Heidi and Stephen got married and so a buddy and I loaded mix cds and a change of clothes and hit the road for the three hour drive to Alsea, Oregon. Because we would be passing through Oregon wine country and because my friend is a genius, she made reservations for a private tasting at Natalie's Estate, a small little winery near Newburg. After viognier, tasty cheeses, nerdy talk of the char on new oak, and purchasing a couple of bottles for safekeeping, and we were back on the road. The trip down 99W was a pretty extraordinary who's who of Oregon wine production, but no more stopping because The Thyme Garden in Alsea, Oregon beckoned. It was a lovely little herb farm in a high mountain valley far away from the world. Everything about it was perfect and I met a lot of Alaskans and smarty-pants scientists that do things with the atomic clock and radar and pharmaceuticals and so forth. Fun.

Kids today

2009-09-10T07:40:00.000-07:00

So I'm hanging out at this resale shop on E. Burnside called Rad Summer. They have what the kids want today and I fear my tastes haven't caught up just yet to the cutting edge of Portland fashion. I'm not saying it isn't cool. It's cool, okay? It's just that I haven't figured out how to rock a yellow neon hoodie and wedgie nurse shoes yet. Yes, it is funny to watch me try.

So I'm going through a carousel rack of clothing that reminded me of what Shaun Cassidy might have worn to a charity bicycle race to raise money for the band Cameo. Two very skinny 20ish guys with long beards and head bands are sitting in the back near the shop's vinyl selection which includes Kay Gardner records on prominent display. The albums hover in the shop like a life preserver of Something I Can Understand. Kay Gardner is an old school lez feminist musician who's been associated with the Michfest that I go to. I cannot be considered a fan, but I know my music herstory and know she's a crystal-lifting, moon goddess gown wearing new age music composer. So I walk over and pick up the record and the two bearded dudes start talking to me about it. Because that's the kind of vinyl that the kids today seek. That's where we are at right now. Whoa.

2009-09-06T11:05:00.000-07:00

My crush on Hot Lava continues unabated.

Awesome New Band Alert

2009-09-05T18:29:00.000-07:00

I get to say they are new because I just heard them. It's my blog and I make the rules. Anyways, WHERE in the world is there a cuter band than this??? Hot Lava!

Hot Lava - Mummy Beach

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Time Based Art

2009-09-05T17:27:00.000-07:00

Sure did see a neat show last night. It was everything I like: contemporary dance, excellent understated costuming, video and super interesting rock and roll. Explode into Colors collaborated with a very interesting dancer/choreographer who goes by the name Janet Pants. It is impossible for me to aptly describe the show, but there was a lot of moving around and it sounded good.

I also ate grasshoppers! No, really.

I plan to spend the next several days slogging between all the great Time Based Art performances. Tonight is Ten Tiny Dances. I love Portland.

2009-09-01T19:12:00.001-07:00

Did you see that?

2009-08-31T22:53:00.000-07:00

I hear that Burning Man started today, which explains what all those freaky ass cars and buses were doing on I-5 southbound for the past several days. Mystery solved.

Ahoy.

2009-08-31T07:04:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what it is about getting to visit the ocean, but I am feeling just right this morning. This past weekend I drove out to Westport, WA and met up with my dear ol' pals, walked on the beach, slept under the stars, played guitars, and otherwise looked like an ad for an aging hipster summer camp. What an ideal situation.

The next morning, we went over to the nearby commercial fishing docks, lured in by hand painted sign for the fresh catch of the day. After visiting a coast guard museum that displayed huge sea mammal skeletons, we walked around on the docks to check out all the boats and crab rings. Salty dog type fisherman guys and their twenty-ish sons washed fish guts off of decks, messed around with marine engines, and otherwise got all nautical. On Dock #3 we found another family operation that was selling fish off of their boat. Check it out: the hold was full of salmon and tuna. There was a scale on deck and a bunch of plastic bags. The tuna (weighed whole) was $2.25 per pound as is and $2.50 a pound if they fileted it. We split the cost on a $30.00 fish and each walked away with about 6 pounds of just-caught-this-morning albacore filets. Bargain! I made ceviche when I got home and it was delicious. If anyone has any tuna recipes I'll be at it all week so don't be shy.

The Waterboys - Fisherman's Blues

Picking on Sculptures

2009-08-29T07:21:00.000-07:00

My schedule has worked out for the past couple of weeks so that I could walk to work almost every day. I don't live too far away from my office and can hustle down there in about 14 or 15 minutes if I go fast. The weather has been exceptional and I've been taking alternating routes, passing all manner of public sculptures. I like to tease Portland because I think that a great many of the public sculptures are god awful. Maybe that is true in most cities, but it seems to me that in a place like this where you'd think the taste level is at least above average, there would be fewer stinkers. I am not the only one who ridicules the public art around here. Anyways, click through to see a few of these, and of course, because it is art and you are very contrary, you may disagree:

1. Han Solo with an Umbrella

2. Portlandia (pictured above). Yikes.

3. Scary giant face made of tape sculpture . And there are TWO of them, on either side of the ballpark.

I think it is safe to say that I could do a whole other blog just about public art in Portland. I think several people have already done so and they know more about art so can be truly scathing and bitchy. But I'm not like that. In fact, I think I might be a crusty old man because my favorite Portland sculpture is the Abe Lincoln in the South Park Blocks.

Don't Get Me Wrong

2009-08-26T06:51:00.000-07:00

This week I added another year to my age and my, my, had a fun time with that. A bunch of especially smart and good looking Portland friends gathered at Alu, a great little wine bar on MLK. I got cake, a happy birthday song, and then the hardy remainder bundled me off to The Alibi. It is an old tiki lounge with a reliable karaoke scene and lots of charm. And in case I was not already overstimulated enough, Juliette Lewis was there with a bunch of her friends and she sang a song (does anyone remember what that was?) and I got my picture taken with her. I butchered Shirley Bassey's Goldfinger and went on home. I did not linger with the hollywood actress or get her number or anything because I knew I would be seeing her again.

Indeed, my birthday present to myself was tickets to The Pretenders last night. Catpower and Juliette Lewis were the openers. They were both fine but the Pretenders were so rock and roll excellent as not to be believed. And if there is something to quickly put the aging process into vivid perspective it would be watching 58 year old Chrissie Hynde wailing out Precious in her little rubber boots and just bringing the house down. It was as impressive a show by anyone that I have probably ever seen and I got to see it outside on the McMenamin's Edgefield lawn and that made things even better.

Art 21

2009-08-23T20:29:00.000-07:00

Perhaps I am the last person to know about this because I so very rarely watch TV these days. It's not that I've become a bookish curmudgeon. It's just that I am not home all that much and when I am I have to wash the dishes or sleep. That's all. But anyways, on a tip from Ricky Lee's netflix queue, I decided to start watching the PBS Art 21 series.

It is sort of like a video magazine that rolls through all sorts of contemporary artists, many of which I hadn't heard of or did not know much about. What a treat to see an interview with Sally Mann at her farm, or to see Ann Hamilton put an installation together. And oh my gosh there are so many seasons of this show. So many artists and ideas showcased. It just keeps going and going and you see so much stuff and when you come across a blowhard jerkwad you can just hit fast forward.

2009-08-22T09:04:00.001-07:00

Theater!

2009-08-20T07:30:00.000-07:00

I have stumbled into some fun stage performance situations this summer. First off, I saw Storm Large to her one-woman show and that was okay but I think I'm a little tough to impress/shock/move when it comes to hardscrabble stories because I hear it all day. The music was nice and now I can say I know who Storm Large is. Okay. The more exciting piece was back over at Milepost 5 which is AWESOME and you should hurry your ass over to this weekend because The Manor of Art show is coming down on Sunday. And last night that show included theatrical pieces in conjunction with the Hand2Mouth Theater group. Angela Fair blew me away with a funny, tragic, pitch perfect monologue sort of number that incorporated costume, video, a karaoke bar nervous breakdown, and an ethereal technical support call from the cosmos. I could get really into going to see performance art stuff all the time if it was all this good. Note to self: go see more theater.

Ed Sharpe

2009-08-17T07:51:00.000-07:00

While trying on a sweater in the dressing room of a downtown Portland clothes shop, I discovered this band playing, asked the clerk who they were, and went and got the album. And, as luck would have it, they are going to be playing in Portland in a few weeks. New band to like!

Ed Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Up From Below

Ed Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Home

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And We're Back

2009-08-16T10:35:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long absence. Between my vacation from the grid and a computer repair, its been a long time. But enough about me, how have you been? During this radio silence, the following occurred:

1). Michfest. My annual pilgrimage was so totally worth it once again. I visited my dear ones in Kalamazoo on the way in and borrowed a little kid-sized $10 guitar. I made my way on to The Land out in the middle-of-nowhere Michigan on Monday and played music all week. Harry Nilsson, David Bowie, Jo Carol Pierce, Freakwater, etc etc. I haven't sat down and played and played like that in about ten years but my fingers remembered the way eventually, and I was real happy to get home and try out all my new mad skills on my Takamine. As far as the festival goes, Sia was AMAZING.

2). Manor of Art! I'm not exactly sure what the deal is, but there's an old nursing home in NE portland that has been taken over by artists and bands. Every room is an installation or an artist specific gallery. Even the toilets were bedazzled by the art pranksters with action figures, paint and whatnot. HURRY. It's only going to be up for another 8 days or so. My favorite part was watching jack ass Portlanders run through the labyrinthine space playing laser tag. Perfect.

Back to the Midwest

2009-07-31T14:32:00.000-07:00

I'll be spending the next week in the middle-of-nowhere camping and not listening to Guided by Voices. See you then.

It was so hot out...

2009-07-30T18:02:00.001-07:00

...that I reserved the cabin at the end of this road for a weekend in January. I'll have to remember how unbearably hot it was while I am chattering my teeth in that cabin.

Very Hot Out

2009-07-28T12:21:00.000-07:00

The lady on 10th Avenue used her most diplomatic voice when she asked, "Are you a robot or a real person?" But it is extremely hot out right now in Portland. Almost no one has air conditioning. It was hot all night long and no one slept very well. Whereas normally the woman on the corner might have patiently replied that she was human and not humanoid, today is no day for niceties. So she screamed, very loudly, "I AM A HUMAN BEING NOT A ROBOT! NOW LEAVE ME ALONE!" The startled questioner was perplexed by all the hostility. (Was this robot programmed to attack when confronted?) She kept looking back over her shoulder and made her sweaty way on up the street. This is all true and I saw it on my way to work.

Sallie Ford

2009-07-26T18:12:00.001-07:00

I have been running my most recent Portland visitor through an obstacle course of musical performances this weekend. We went over to PDX POP NOW this afternoon and happened upon Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside's set. Wow wow wow. I think she's going to be a star.

Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside - Not an Animal

Musical July

2009-07-24T09:11:00.000-07:00

I am continually preoccupied with music, but this July has been especially tuneful, and a lot has been going on at work, and I have fallen off a bit in my posting frequency. But please let me tell you about these three things:

1. Free shows downtown. I look a bit funny in my suit down there with the bands but that's okay. This week I saw Mirah and the Portland Cello Project play together and that was so pretty to see outdoors. The thing I like about Mirah is seeing her live and how much control she has over that amazing voice of hers. And a bunch of cellos backing her up, all the better. Earlier in the week was the PDX POP NOW kickoff show at city hall featuring Y La Bamba, Point Juncture, WA, and Yacht. The voodoo doughnut truck was there along with a whole mess of scenesters. I am way looking forward to taking full advantage of that POP NOW fest because last year it was an amazing cavalcade of great bands and this year's lineup is even better. Yes, it is like heaven.

2. Walking down Ainsworth Ave. on a Sunday morning and happening upon a full-on gospel service in full glorious swing at a tiny little store-front church. Not enough to witness me away from atheism, but the most persuasive reason I can think of.

3. Hosted a fundraiser for Siren Nation at Every Day Wine on Alberta. It was SO FUN and I hope I can do it again. We made a little money for the festival but more importantly, I got to hang out with a bunch of great ladies and Ashleigh Flynn played us a little set and all the wine that was featured came from women-owned vineyards.

More later... must go see more shows...

Mirah - Generosity

The Portland Cello Project - Travel (featuring Justin Powers)

Y La Bamba - Fasting in San Francisco

Bribery

2009-07-20T22:50:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow I am doing something at my office that we call a staffing. I have a tricky case and so I am hoping all the brilliant minds will descend into the large conference room on the 16th floor and read over some memos about the facts and brainstorm with me about how I am going to work it all out. Because it is a hot week here in Portland, in the 90's, I'm going to serve Texas-style limeade. I am hoping if the exciting subject matter does not bring in the crowd, limeade will do the trick. Wish me luck.

Also, I should probably get a fan for my apartment.

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So this is why people like summer in Portland

2009-07-20T00:09:00.001-07:00

I didn't plan too much for this weekend. I had some great birthday parties to go to, and I did a big giant hike up and down to Pittock Mansion. And then I got this unexpected invitation to go sit on the beach at Sauvie Island and eat sandwiches and watch the Columbia River roll by. I put on my best sunscreen and floppy straw hat and had a jolly afternoon. But then, it was time to go. But we COULDN'T. There was a brush fire somewhere and they closed the road. There's only one road and one bridge off the island. No escape. I'll tell you, this Pacific Northwest does not mess around when it comes to outdoor adventures... people get lost in the woods, fall off trails to their doom, all sorts of things. Since Sauvie Island is a bucolic slice of midwestern berry picking farm country, I thought it would be alright, what could happen so long as I did not go swimming? BRUSHFIRE! So instead of sitting on a two lane road of crabby traffic, we just went back to the beach until the fire went out or something. I am dirty with sand and sunblock and happy not to have been consumed by the flames and glad I spent the whole day outside.

WAVVES - Beach Demon

Goldfrapp - Happiness

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Bluegrass Hippie Magik

2009-07-18T01:02:00.001-07:00

A friend whisked me off into the woods south of Portland this evening for something called The NW String Summit and we had all access passes and I got to see The Bad Livers address a crowd of friendly hippies and their children. A very, very drunk seeming woman made me a pulled pork burrito for my dinner. And then I got to meet Dan Barnes, who could not be nicer. I am ready now, having dipped my toe in, for full summer music fest madness. All hail Bad Livers.

The Bad Livers - Jesus is on the Mainline

The Bad Livers - Ghost Train

Rumor had it...

2009-07-15T09:12:00.000-07:00

...last night that Dave Chappelle was going to do a secret show at Pioneer Square at midnight. I'm not clear on the details about how this rumor got started, but I got 2 texts about it from friends and headed down there where I found a huge crowd of 10,000 or so people who had gotten the same message. We waited for about 45 minutes to see if Chappelle was going to show up, but the tug of the day job won over and we went home. Sometime around 1am, Chappelle made good on the rumor and donned the stage with a tiny practice amp and a mic. Even though I left and wouldn't have been able to hear anyways, participating in this strange collective hysteria was worth going staying up for. Portland gone wild!

40% Hearing Loss

2009-07-12T09:48:00.000-07:00

Sure, yeah, I go to rock shows. Or at least I say I do, but quite often I'm actually at pop shows. or folk shows. Last night I crossed over a bright differentiating line and was definitely at a rock show. Subarachnoid Space has two guys from Ohio in it who are friends of the friends that are staying with me. I probably would not have come across them if I hadn't been tagging along. They were down in the basement of a bar, blasting instrumental psychedelic rock jams and an earthshaking volume. There were about 50 people in the room, all around my age, sending out a friendly "you must be pretty cool if you came out to see this" fraternal vibe. I recognized a couple of verifiable rock stars in the crowd. It was like this: everyone in the band was wearing white. They are led by a prog rock warrior goddess named Melynda Jackson who has the aura of a cult leader and is in charge of conducting the fantastically loud and roaring crescendos, stops, and feedback. She played the guitar with her teeth at one point. These folks are going on a tour soon and you should try to see them (or book them) if you aren't from around here. I think they play in Portland a lot. Oh, and there was this two-piece band I saw a couple of weeks ago which also blew my mind with rockness and they are called Mustaphamond. You should see them too.

Visitorville

2009-07-11T10:41:00.000-07:00

I have been treated to many a visit this summer by friends from far and wide, and my futon couch remains booked through the end of the month. Work has been a little bit more challenging than usual, so I am extra lucky to have old pals waiting for me at home at the end of the day. And I get to show off Portland. Last night we went all over the place, the highlight for me being a gallery opening at worksound that featured a bunch of Portland photographers showing off their portrait work. Gus Van Sant was in the show, and I am pretty sure also in attendance. No time to blog with all this running around to do. So forgive me or come visit. In the meantime, there's something insane going on between two food carts near my apartment.

Just a Tuesday

2009-07-08T00:29:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why people in Portland aren't losing their minds for the restaurant on N. Williams called Lincoln, but I had a second really great, fairly priced dinner there tonight. AND I kicked ass and took names during my work day, AND I discovered I was born less than a mile from the Mississippi River AND I got to see Tara Jane O'Neil play esoteric atmospheric rock at Valentines AND I got to listen to an old Prince record while standing in line at VooDoo doughnut with my brilliant visitor friends from Ohio. All in all, a rather fine July day.

Tara Jane O'Neil - Pearl into Sand

Full Tilt Summer

2009-07-05T17:41:00.000-07:00

If I ever had a better 4th of July weekend, I don't recall it. And mostly I'm keeping track of this one by the way it smelled. There was an honest to goodness seabreeze blowing down the Willamette on Saturday night, so much that I expected to look out over the water and see the Pacific. My pals and I took the max down to the river and walked across the Burnside Bridge just as the fireworks were going off. My friend Joe used to have a professional gig as a fireworks pyro guy, setting off displays with a company out of Ohio. He said the evening was perfect for the fireworks because there was just enough wind to blow the smoke away, but not so much as to mess with the rockets. With all the sanctioned and outlaw explosives going off in town, the air also smelled like gunpowder, sulfur, city and hot dogs.

We spent the day driving around the Willamette Valley visiting wineries as part of a benefit for EcoTrust and their farm to schools program, geared at getting more local produce into the school cafeterias in Portland. We went to Anne Amie, Coelho, Four Graces, and Amity Vineyards. It was mostly about the pinot grape and a few others, and it was a totally beautiful hot day. All the mountains were out. This morning was a gigantic brunch and a bike ride and now I'm just going to watch the sun go down on Sunday.

Vic Chesnutt - Independence Day

Galaxie 500 - Fourth of July

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Not cool, Ft. Worth

2009-07-01T15:28:00.000-07:00

The gist: A new gay bar in Ft. Worth called the Rainbow Connection was raided by police last week. The lovers, the dreamers, and a whole bunch of homophobic cops. One guy is the hospital in critical condition and seven others were arrested. The cops said they went to the bar to check on whether anyone was publicly intoxicated. They claim they had to get rowdy because someone "touched" them. Uh huh.

I grew up in the area and heaven knows why I left.

The Unicycles

2009-06-30T07:20:00.000-07:00

All of the sudden, I feel like I'm at a French circus. There are copious numbers of unicycles and unicycle related events popping up all over town. The momentum seems to be coming from a sketchy group of enthusiasts called The Unicycle Bastards. Last week, intrigued, I attended the World Championship Unicycle Polo Tournament. They are tying to build a movement here, people, so if the same 16 men women and children are switching jerseys and standing in for North Korea, Russia, Mexico, India, etc, that's fine because maybe actual unicyclists from those countries will show up to play polo on the tennis court of a Portland public park next year. For now, the Unicycle Bastards are their proxies. As a spectator, I found it very suspenseful to watch and see if the athletic, somewhat aggressive men on the court would hurt or maim any of the 12 year olds who were also playing. No one went to the emergency room while I was there.

Not to stop with the polo, I have also been seeing stuff around about unicycle mountain biking. Seriously. I am glad they wear helmets.

Bill Fox - Portland Town

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Off the wall

2009-06-28T13:42:00.000-07:00

The Seattle boys took the train down and we simply wrung it out. Impromptu Michael Jackson dance party in the middle of Alberta St. with 200 people on Thursday night. A swing by the new restaurant Beaker and Flask in its sleek fancy space that looks like a cross between a chemistry classroom and an auto showroom, in the best possible way. We also went to a preview party for a new venue that will be opening soon called The Woods down in Sellwood. It is an old funeral home, with all the wallpaper and carpet that you would expect. The Portland Cello Project played a cover of Man in the Mirror and Loch Lomond put on the loveliest little set and I fell for them hard.

Loch Lomond - Blue Lead Fences

Limiting the State

2009-06-25T09:20:00.001-07:00

Maybe it is still sort of a free country. A little bit. The Supreme Court just ruled 8 to 1 that a school in Arizona violated a 13 y.o. girl's rights when it stripped searched her looking for ibuprofen. Gaw! I remember hearing about this case when it was originally argued and feeling queasy about the state of civil liberties. I am glad Redding won, and by a healthy margin. Guess which justice voted that the strip search was fine? Clarence Thomas. What is it about conservatives and authoritarianism? They claim to loathe big government but love a big truncheon. From his dissent:

By declaring the search unreasonable in this case, the majority has “‘surrender[ed] control of the American public school system to public school students’” by invalidating school policies that treat all drugs equally and by second-guessing swift disciplinary decisions made by school officials.

Read the full opinion here.

Jonathan Richman Bike Ride

2009-06-22T22:46:00.000-07:00

How to describe this... Imagine a random assortment of people on bicycles congregating at a coffee shop at the designated hour of 6pm. The leader of the pack has a bmx sort of bike that is outfitted with a side car. That side car has a booming speaker (with surprisingly nice fidelity) connected to an ipod. That ipod plays Jonathan Richman songs. We follow the leader. We are about twenty strong. He takes us to locations that are synched with the songs. We go to the Cappuchino Bar, the Government Center, a lesbian bar, a mural that references the Velvet Underground, visit the ice cream man, stop for tacos, and ruminate on how everyday clothes are sexier than dressing up. And of course, Road Runner gets played more than once. I am not sure how many miles we went but it was a great way to have a big old crush on Portland.

This event was one of many many many that have been happening in Portland over the last week or so as part of Pedalpalooza. I have not had occasion to really hang out with the bike people so much, but now that i have a bike I get to and I will say this: they are goofy and know how to have a good time. One woman on our ride was able to dance quite credibly while riding. We stumbled into a park in SE that was full of gutterpunks playing kickball and acrobats practicing tumbling and the high wire. Everyone was checking out everyone elses freakbikes and comparing road rash. Everyone was sort of dirty. I liked it.

Jonathan Richman - That Summer Feeling

Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers - Roadrunner

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