"An Attack is Not Taking Place"

"The Day Called X" is a beautiful little piece of ephemera. Made for CBS around 1957, it shows Portland in her... umm... "not so freshest" days. "Out of fashion" buildings were being or had been demolished in the throes of early urban planning and the city had very little character at this period.

I really dig that he uses the phrase "shining the pumper."

I also noticed that the shoulder patch for the Portland Police Bureau has remained pretty much unchanged since the time this was filmed.

Just before the 15:00 mark, there's some really cool footage of the old Morrison Bridge.
If you can get past the "Banshee wail of the siren," that seems endless in the first few minutes, this is really cool.

Kelley Butte, the location of the underground city hall, is definitely on my list. I tried real hard to find it a few years ago via tri-met and on foot, but failed. 103rd! Not a whole lot to see, but still worth the trip.

Check out Cyclotram, where I found the Kelley Butte info and discovered a really awesome new daily visit. Thanks!

Culture shocked

Two days of work seemed like an entire week as I'm still reeling from a week in Indiana. Things were so much sadder and browner than I remember, being accustomed to the green northwest.

Tonight a friend mentioned that she didn't know her childhood home's state song, or flower, or tree, or rock, or any of these things that I always took for granted that everyone just knew.

As I flew from O'Hare I had a whole row to myself, so for 32 minutes I was able to slouch, but just couldn't resist the window seat, having driven that same route we were flying enough times that I can spell "Rensselaer" without a second thought, and know all about the "dogleg" (which I see has been renamed I-865 after 32 years confusion.)

From above, I picked out the Wabash River, and thought about Indiana's state song, On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away. The goddamn state song is about having left the state...
What does this say about us?

'Round my Indiana homesteads wave the cornfields,
In the distance loom the woodlands clear and cool.
Oftentimes my thoughts revert to scenes of childhood,
Where I first received my lessons, nature's school.
But one thing there is missing in the picture,
Without her face it seems so incomplete.
I long to see my mother in the doorway,
As she stood there years ago, her boy to greet.

Oh, the moonlight's fair tonight along the Wabash,
From the fields there comes the breath of newmown hay.
Through the sycamores the candle lights are gleaming,
On the banks of the Wabash, far away.

Sorry to get all cheesy and Garrison on ya'll, but this year's trip home was long weird one.

Back to PDX

I've made it out of Indiana successfully once again. Now back in Portland, I'm trapped inside even though it looks like a beautiful day out there. The luggage didn't make it out of SFO, so I'm waiting around for luggage delivery dude to show.
Luckily I came home to find two big ol' blocks of the aged Tillamook, and a tub o' homemade fudge courtesy of G's Mom.

I planned on
spending my day off work taking a leisurely walk, re-acquainting myself with the city even though I was only gone a week. I really wanted to go get a slice of Hot Lips Pizza, but alas, I was stuck with my own creation of Trader Joe's frozen pizza with aforementioned aged cheddar and some summer sausage (also courtesy of G's mom).

45 minutes of White Christmas

It came in just under the wire, but at 11:15pm Christmas night, the snow started flying. Its right around midnight, and its letting up a bit, but we made it. Just enough to officially call it a White Christmas, at least up here on our ridge. I think it was pretty scattered around Southern Indiana, but I'm psyched, as long as there's no delayed flights Tuesday, my Christmas booty and I need to be getting back to Portland post haste.
This has been one of the best trips back home for Christmas in a long time, but I'm ready to get out of the boonies, back to my beautiful Portland, my broadband connection, and especially my G. I miss ya a lot buddy. See you tomorrow night, I'll call you from San Fran.

Merry Christmas from 625-E

Ever since I've left home, our Christmas mornings have been a little less than "traditional..."
We tend to do our gift exchange sometime around 1 or 2 am Christmas morning due to Mom & Dad's weird sleep schedules, and my remaining on PST the whole time I'm in Indiana.
I have to share that obligatory "kid at christmas" picture that my Mom has taken of me every year as long as I can remember.



Happy Holidays everyone!

Not as slow as I thought

At least if I wait until late enough at night. Made it out for a good ol' time in the backwoods this afternoon. The weather was perfect, the lighting was nice, and even with dad's older camera I still got some awesome shots Check my Flickr page for the whole set. Merry Christmas ya'll!

44.0 kbps

Photos are out of the question for the moment as I'm blogging from my childhood home on Haney Ridge instead of from Sellwood Street tonight. I've been back home again in Indiana now for a few days, enjoying the solitude of the country, catching up with folks I haven't seen in a year, or in some cases people I haven't seen in five years. I promise there'll be some photos to come of my Indiana adventures once I get back to Portland and my broadband. Dad just got a new camera I've gotta go try out.
Luckily I somehow scored a rental SUV (one of the tiny ones at least) so there's been a little muddin' going on. I can't wait to see the Hertz guys' faces as I pull up to return the thing on Tuesday. I made the drive into Bloomington yesterday only using about three miles of actual state highway. Even after five years away, I still know Greenetucky county roads intimately.
Tomorrow after church (sigh, it is christmas, and it makes Mom happy), I plan on making it out to the Viaduct (as we call it locally, it is officially known as the Tulip Trestle) to take some pictures and splash around on some of the shittiest excuses for roads I can think of. There's also a couple of my favorite abandoned houses out around Mineral & Koleen. I need to see if they're still standing. Oh, and the Crane Village school, I almost forgot about that... Should be a hoot.
Well, better start publishing this post, go open another Upland Dragonfly IPA, and maybe by the time I'm finished with it, this post will be online.

Happy Election Night

Last night we had our own broken polls on Sellwood St.

I heard this happen, but shrugged it off as the crazy cats upstairs knocking over something big. G came home about 10 minutes later telling me there's lines down in the street. I walk out and immediately notice the utility pole in front of the house is leaning to the right, like, a lot. Then we notice that the pole down at the corner (the one in the picture) is snapped like a toothpick. Its not until we're on the phone with 911 reporting the downed wires that we notice the ginormous tree that fell three houses up and the snapped poles all up the block. Luckily, the wires downed on the Sube were only old phone lines. No one in the building even has a land line, so its just as well that it was snapped.

scenes from a quiet autumn weekend

Pretty Fall Tree













Tram and South Waterfront construction



















I especially dig the temporary staircase

Cat Jacked!

Update! The car was found unharmed except for a stain from a melty bag of groceries on the carpet.




This was about to be a post about my trip to Silver Falls State Park. I've got some mediocre pictures on flickr, check them out. It pretty much tells the story. I didn't get a pic of the world's largest glockenspeil in Mt. Angel, or the divey bar where we ate lunch in Silverton, on the "creekside deck" which turned out to be a perch high above a beer commercial rocky shallow creek.
Only pics of the falls loop hike. They all kinda look like dollar store jigsaw puzzles. Oh yeah, and the punk rock wooley worm on the way back to the
car...
The big story however is that of my upstairs neighbors, Satchmo & Beatrix. Satch has lived up there forever, B is a recent addition. The two of them run amok, back and forth across the apartment for about 15 minutes as soon as their person leaves each morning.

The two have been in an unfortunate adventure as of late...
So, their person pulls up to her S.O.'s place in the 'Couv. She takes some stuff inside, leaves the car unlocked because she's going back out to get the cats in just a minute. Then the car drives away, cats inside... KGW tells the story better than I can.

Good news! I have just rubbed Satch's ears. He is now home safe and B will be returning shortly. As for the car, neighbor is driving an unfortunate PT Cruiser with CA plates, which tells me that her Mazda has not yet returned home.

At Your Service

I just noticed this truck the other day in one of the weird COP parking lots under the Minnesota Freeway. I'm sure he's been there for a long time, in a forgotten corner of the gravel lot where city vehicles go to die.

This one is even more curious since Powell Valley was a weird little independent water district out in SE Portland, about 39,000 customers between the 205 & Gresham. It held its own until 2005 when it was absorbed (sorry) into the Portland Water Bureau. I imagine this truck as one of the three vehicles they were using out there that the Water Bureau decided to keep around for posterity.

I really liked Mr. Dropsy (not his real name) and had to look for some other images of this loyal public utility mascot and found him still alive and well, and a little updated, still the jovial face of various water utility districts around the country.

No one in the world ever gets what they want, And that is beautiful
Everybody dies frustrated and sad, And that is beautiful

Geeking out with a little TMBG tonight after that line was stuck in my head all day.
I remember it being really profound in the 9th grade, and tonight this is still one of my all time favorite lyrics from any song, ever.
Watch the video!
And watch Anna Ng while you're at it.
Come to think of it, I wonder if Anne Ng still works at the Bangkok Kitchen?

Warrior Point

"In their way hither they had passed two Indian villages on the west side of the river and had been joined by a hundred and fifty of the natives in twenty-five canoes. To avoid any surprise they dined in their boats; this precaution, however, was unnecessary, for on some trivial presents being made a trade immediately commenced, in which the Indians conducted themselves with the utmost decorum. No attempts were made to pass the line drawn on the beach, excepting by two, who appeared to be the principal chiefs, and who were permitted to join the party. These seemed to be very well disposed, and inclined to communicate every information, but unfortunately for our gentlemen, a total ignorance of the Indians' language precluded their profiting by these friendly intentions." -From the Center for Columbia River History.


A couple Saturday mornings ago G and I were up and out into the crisp fall morning, for the hike to the northernmost point of Sauvie Island. Cross the bridge, stop and buy your parking permit from the little store, drive out until the road turns to gravel, go past Collins Beach, keep going for another two miles until the road ends in a parking lot. Climb the gate, walk across the pasture of friendly cows, and you can begin to pick out the former road heading into the Cottonwood forest.
We ended up abandoning this trail about 1/2 mile in as the river was very low and we realized we would be able to walk all the way up the beach, which was a great decision. Lots of frogs, clams, and other river critters. Plenty of beachey things to look at, and views of all the Cascades from Rainier to Hood make this one of the most beautiful stretches of beach I've ever walked.


About halfway to the lighthouse, we came across this cool little shipwreck.






















The town of St. Helens, Oregon, across the entrance of Scappoose Bay.



















This little guy was the only bright point of the hike out through the nettles. On our trip back out we realized that if we hadn't walked to the Point along the beach, we probably wouldn't have made it all the way. Late September means the blackberries and nettles are in full force, in some places we chose to tromp through the nettles instead of the blackberries. I learned to like the sting...
There were at least four of these little frogs in the tree, but the little bastards are hard to take a picture of.

Random thoughts...

I fried some chicken for supper tonight and it made a greasy mess of the floor in front of the stove. I cleaned it with some of that grapefruit kitchen cleaner from Target. Now the spot in front of the stove is really shiny clean, I feel like I need to clean the rest of the kitchen floor to match...

My ipod needs charged (done 9/08)

I need to clean the guinea pig's cage (done 9/08)

What do ya'll call your evening meal? In my family it was always "supper". "Dinner" was around noon time if you were at home, "lunch" was what you took to school or work. "Supper" was the evening meal. (confirmed 9/09 by G's 92 year old grandfather from Idaho, from Missouri parents, Pork Tenderloin Belt.)

New job is cool. Everyone I've encountered so far is okay, but there's like a hundred people, so I've only met a small percentage of them.
Next week I'll be trucking t-shirts around the metro area every afternoon in a big ol' box truck. Watch out! I haven't driven a stick shift regularly in five years, let alone 7 tons of Japanese diesel. I'm sure there'll be some bucking and grinding for the first few days.
Today I spent my afternoon unpacking and sorting shirts for our upcoming outlet sale. Mark it on your calenders! Friday Sep 15 and Saturday Sep 16. Lots and lots of cheap t shirts, and at least half of them are cool shit! We print a lot of shirts, and sometimes they're just not right. Perhaps the color wasn't quite what the customer wanted, maybe the wrong font was used and no one noticed until the whole job was printed. That's what the outlet sale is all about.
In my sorting I haven't found any real gems yet, like the VIRGINA hats that my friend once encontered at her job with "Hat World." My favorite find of the day had to be the pink Womens XXL shirt with a picture of a tiara and text that read "American Princess."
Everything at the sale is $2 and up, most t-shirts around the $3-$4 range. The entrance is near SE 8th & Salmon, (look for the loading dock on the SW corner). Right near that hideous "active space" building and across the street from that vending machine place and right behind my 2nd favorite bento joint.

Blogworthy

Going through a bunch of pictures and posting stuff to my flickr set, and found a couple pics I deemed "blogworthy" but haven't posted until now.

These ain't no Veggie Tales...

Yo yo yo, its the urban 'mater!Found this guy growing out of a crack in the loading dock of an almost abandoned building down by the train station. There's even a few little tomatos trying to ripen.

The last few weeks

I've been kinda busy with the job hunt over the past few weeks, the blog sort of fell by the wayside, and even now that I'm no longer on the searh, I just haven't got back into it. The job hunt was successful by the way, my last day at the Oil Shack is the 1st of September, then I have a nice 3-day weekend in Seattle, puppy-sitting for some friends, (the closest thing we're getting to a vacation this year,) then Tuesday is my first day at the new job.


I've been out enjoying the waning days of summer here and there but I'm just not summer people. Its so hot and sunny for two whole months here and I hate it! Luckily, the whole ordeal is almost over for this season and we can get back to green grass, moss on the trees, and the sound of Tri-Met splashing up the street every 15 minutes.

We did manage to make it out to Kelly Point the other day. That's the park at the confluence of the mighty Willamette and the mightier Columbia. Not exactly a popular swimming beach, but every dog and even a few of us humans were out in it. It was a hot day, and the Willamette was nice to stand waist deep in.



Some really huge boats were floating by pretty close to the beach, reminding us that we were right between Terminal 5 and Terminal 6. That boat in the front is a pretty big craft, but the big'un is just crazy huge!

What's that smell?

"Wow, that guy sure has a lot of mattresses. I wonder what that's all about?"

(Scroll down for the shocking truth)














Sorry, but I just had to share this pic that G took a couple days ago. Ick! It kinda makes me wretch a little. Beware the craigslist mattress...

Hello?

Oregarus reminded me of a few things today, one of which is the fact that I haven't posted anything new here in like 2 weeks or some shit.
The other is this clip (yeah, I know, "YouTube Dumpster" and such...)
I hadn't seen this in at least 15 years, but now it seems brilliant, at least in a Hoosier context. Every IU basketball game started out this way. I still can't figure out who that lady is. What is her name, what's her story?
Also, notice the Hook's Drugs ad. Sweet! I totally forgot about Hook's Drugs. (The only better pharmacy name also resides in Indiana--Corydon's Butt Drugs.) My folks still have one of the tiny Hook's carts in their garage. How tiny is it? Tiny enough that it was stolen in the back of a Ford Festiva. Last time I was home, Mom was using it for laundry.

Portland from the bluff

G's Flicker Set

Some pics from around Portland, courtesy of G.

Holy Shit, Hee Haw

These were the only words out of my mouth as I was flipping through channels the other night. Any of ya'll who grew up in the south (or in the doormat of the south) will have fond or not so fond memories of the Hee Haw. On the Terre Haute station, I remember Solid Gold coming on right after Hee Haw. Maybe that's just my wierd little kid memories, but what a culturefuck.
Anyway, Hee Haw is on CMT now, just last weekend there was a Hee Haw marathon, and this week there seems to be an hour or two on every night.


On a side note, I once touched Roy Clark's hair plugs.
Long story short, I did audio and light tech work for a show starring Roy Clark, Frank Sinatra Jr, (he was a dick) and Tommy Smothers (who was also kind of a dick, but in a different way.)
After the show, I'm loading equipment into Roy Clark's tour bus, trying to clear all the shit out of the venue, and I turn around to Roy himself, hoisting a crate into the bus, bumping his head into my arm. A true brush with fame. Roy is an awesome guy to work with.

Lazy night...

A refreshing night, but pretty lazy as well. We planned on at least going to the 5th Q for $2 pint night. They have the Proletariat Red as the seasonal from May Day for all us worker bees, go easy on 'em and they're awesome!
So hard to pass up ridiculously cheap beer in my nieghborhood, but after yoga and making some dinner and watching some TV, all ambition was lost. Even the will to walk a few blocks for tasty beer is gone.

This is on a mailbox on an alarmingly quiet corner deep in a part of NW Industrial where I hadn't ventured until yesterday. Somewhere around 17th & Upshur.


Really makes me wish there was some sort of pedestrian crossing at the Fremont Bridge. I'd climb whatever crazy ass staircase it takes. By car, this neighborhod is three minutes away in good traffic, but as a walker person you have to walk down to the Broadway, and then back up the other side of the river for 25 blocks or so. What about a water taxi? Where's my flying car?!?

Pink

Some pictures from thursday night. Just now getting around to doing anything with them. More at the flickr set.

Desperately trying not to become a youtube link dumpster

But this is too funny to pass up.
Australian TV host hits on and feels up Fred Phelps.
"You're a fag-ass pervert. Step off!"

Learn English Commercial

I know I've seen this before, but I'm not sure where. You Tube link, NSFW.

What it Means to be a Hoosier

I just stumbled onto this blog randomly tonight.
Spot fucking on.

Excerpt from Shae's Place

"I'm going to make a call," I'd tell Mom. "Is it long distance?" she'd ask. "Don't stay on there longer than a minute. Say what you need to say and get off there."

"But I have things to say. Here, here's five dollars; at your 7.5-cents-a-minute rate that's more than enough for my call."

"No, I don't want your five dollars. I just don't want you to stay on there long." Mom would say. You see, it isn't the five dollars, or the fact that she has to spend it. It's that the money, no matter where it comes from, is ill-spent. Hoosiers can't stand that.

"But I need to make a call, and I'm willing to pay for it," I would say. "Here's ten dollars."

"No, I don't want your ten dollars. I just don't want you to stay on there long."

Hot

Thank you, Victorian carpenters, for four inch thick walls. With careful opening and closing of the windows at the right times, it is possible to keep our apartment comfortable. The only direct sunlight is in the morning, after noon it stays shaded until sunset. The building is 106 years old and seems to have had some insulation pumped into the thick ass exterior walls.
There will be no cooking. We have a pizza slice shop just up the street, that will do. Don't heat anything up... It could be worse. I could be in St. L. That's a city you usually just want to avoid in the summer, notoriously more oppressive than the rest of the "Brain Sandwich Belt" in the summertime. That's just south of the "Pork Tenderloin Sandwich Belt," where I come from.
I understand why the National Guard is dispatched into St. Louis tonight with half the city without even a fan in the window.
KGW even describes it as "The Misery in Missouri." Wow, where'd they come up with that one?

Kinnear in the 'hood!

"The Feast of Love" is getting ready to start filming in Portland. The Fresh Pot on Mississippi will be the main location as the cafe owned by Greg Kinnear's character, with Morgan Freeman as the wise old customer. The folks making this flick have been by my place of employment as well, scouting out a spot for a "fortune teller's shop," in our weird side room.
I don't make it there as much as I used to now that I live closer to Tinys, but the Fresh Pot used to be my "go get a cup of coffee in my boxers" coffee shop when I lived around the corner from it. I love the place manily for the coffee--Stumptown beans brewed almost perfectly every time with no attitude, and they even brew the Yirgacheffe sometimes. I hope they make bank off this movie, they deserve it.

Photo from ""Portland Ground: Pictures of Portland Oregon - Used under Creative Commons License"
Thanks!

Alarming

"Better Than Nothin'"


















I'm feel kinda funny about it, but I found something at Maxim magazine that I can't stop looking at. Found Porn.
So immature, so many "tee-hee's."

Portland Beer Mapping Project

Every place to sample the local brew. No reviews, just an interactive map.

Free music of the live variety

PDX Pop Now happens the weekend of Aug 5th (Or July 28, there seems to be conflicting info) at Loveland, (down by produce row). It might be crowded and all-ages, but its FREE! I'd especially like to see The Planet The on Sunday night, somehow I've never seen them live.
Before the actual festival is another FREE show put on by PDX Pop Now in collaboration with City Hall. Wed July 19th in front of City Hall 5:30pm is Quasi and The Minders.

About the show, from Comissioner Sam.

Packard Jennings

This small, sixteen-page pamphlet is produced to put inside the postage-paid, business-reply envelopes that come with junk mail offers. Every envelope collected is stuffed with the pamphlet and mailed back to its original company.

Turf War?

Since Nosmot andOregarus took a little mosey around my hood, I thought I'd head out to SE.




Pallets and phalluses?




I had to check out that scary ass pedestrian bridge while I was down there. I'm not sure what was scarier, the swaying in the wind or the sagging and groaning of the railroad ties the thing is built of.


As I pussied my way across it for the second time, carefully stepping and trying not to grab onto the rail that wobbles, a dude comes by riding his bike across this thing like he does it everyday. Damn.

Rose City Rollers

After a rocky beginning Saturday evening, we finally made it into the bleachers of the High Rollers thanks to a friend who caught us as we were on our way out the door.
First strike, Tri-Met. We did everything right, checked the Transit Tracker, got to the Max station about five minutes early, and then waited, patiently listening to that weird robotic voice counting down "Max Yellow Line to Expo, two minutes." Then a minute later it was back to ten minutes. WTF? We finally get on the packed, late train and make it to the Expo center as the roller derby is starting. It is completely packed with the "Event Staff" barking at us not to stand in the only place there is to stand, sending us to the other side of the arena, where another equally rude yellow shirt yells at us to go somewhere else, "go up to the bleachers and tell someone to scoot their ass over," was the command that prompted us to walk out and start looking for a refund. Luckily, that's when our friend and savior M caught us and led us up to sit with her friends in the "High Rollers" section where everyone was psyched and happy. The energy was contagious.
After the initial shitty moments were over, it was a blast! High energy from everyone in the place, the skaters, the spectators, everything was a lot of fun. My only real complaint, (perhaps I just notice more due to my latest bout with poverty) is the prices. I feel like a "get off my lawn" old man, but damn! For something so homegrown and cool, it really is pricey. $15 to get in, and then the real clencher, $5 PBR! Why can't you make them $3 and sell a whole lot more? Or sell some actual homegrown Oregon beer. I'd pay $7 for an IPA or two. You could really pick out the alcoholics and trustifarians in the crowd, who the fuck else is gonna pay $5 for PBR? All ya'll know that I loves me some beer, but even I stayed on the wagon that night. I'd recommend the next bout in August though, just remember to get good and sauced before you go.
Rose City Rollers

And now for a moment of internet history...

I watched the newest Hasselhoff video this morning and realized that it just wasn't that funny now that he's in on the joke.
Somehow this lead me to stumble upon a long forgotten (at least for me) chunk of video that is an important part of what the net is and should always be. Somehwere post Hampsterdance, pre-Star Wars Kid, there was Hyakugojyuuichi!!!



And a little something to get that Pokemon song out of your head...

Ok, and while we're on a video post, you might as well watch my favorite opening credit sequence ever.
Everything about it, the colors, that jerky quick zoom into Jack Lord on top of the hotel, the freeze frame on the hula girl's hips. Its like MTV before the people who created it were even born.

"We need to go to Tennessee to pick up some fireworks, and someone owes me money in Kentucky."

Tom Waits tours, and almost all the shows are within day's drive of down home...
Atlanta, Asheville, Memphis, Nashville, Louisville, Chicago, Detroit, Cuyahoga Falls, Milwaukee...
If I still lived back home and had vacation days and a little disposible income I'd be all over this shit. Since none of the above apply to me right now, all ya'll in Indiana (or anywhere where you understand what "all ya'll" means,) should at least make it to Louisville or Chicago.
Some day he'll manage to hit Portland, and hopefully play at some place like the Wonder Ballroom or the Doug Fir where it won't cost $40, like a show at the Schnitz

Katamari?

All I ever wanted

Damn, what a long week. I always forget how much work it is to entertain, even for an old friend who doesn't expect too much other than a place to sleep and a trip to the coast. It was a partial vacation for me, ending in a four-day weekend, much needed for sure.
I learned a lot this week as well. I discovered that the "nude beach" at Rooster Rock is really more of a "nude hiking" area full of dirty old men (we never did find a "beach") and that Collins Beach on Sauvie Island is by far the best place to go do a little nekkid swimming. I learned that google maps is especially full of shit when it comes to driving directions and shouldn't be trusted. We also learned that the Oregon coast should be avoided on the 4th of July weekend. OK, so I already knew that one, but we had to go since my normally land-locked friend was in town.













That's Astoria, my favorite coastal town. Even though there's really not any sandy beaches, it just has a cool feel to it. It would be a great place to live if there were more jobs and something to do other than drink.





GOONIES HOUSE! Fuckin A! I couldn't resist, I had to trudge up their driveway and do my own Truffle Shuffle while my friends waited in the car.








And here's the school where the gubernator wrangled those hilarious kindergartners. That was a great one.