The Unicycles

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

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

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

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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Fish 1, Tex 0.

Another fishing adventure commenced on Saturday morning. Still full from our late night ride-home-from-the-airport pit stop at The Potato Champion, buddy Greta and I headed out to Hood River. Fishing rods, tackle, joie de vivre. And although the fishing devolved into donations of lures and rigs into various streams and tributaries rather than the actual catching of fish, we had a nice time. We drove all the way out to Celilo and the back up into the mountains to Lost Lake. Quiet ponds with worms and bobbers is my kind of fishing. Not that it improved my showing.

Rupa and the April Fishes - Wishful Thinking

After that, we got home just in time to wash the bait off and get over to the spoken word/queer puppet show at In Other Words. My faith in queer girl artistic expression was renewed again. As it often is. Love my people. The evening ended with bocce ball on a porch. Only getting a weekend with my favorite rabble rousing adventure buddy was way too short.

Domo

This is my new girlfriend. I haven't had a stuffed animal in many, many years and am suspicious of adults who do. Yet, I found Domo in a shop today and brought her home and I think we are going to be friends.

Sweet new ride.