Welcome to Northwest Paradise! Portland is an incredible, magical place full of creativity, adventures, art and a constant stream of new things to be discovered. This is the story of my PDX Adventure.
Thanks to Portland's widely varied and creative community of artists and musicians, I rarely find myself without a plethora of event options pretty much any night of the week. Lucky for me I was in a geeky kind of mood and was able to catch this show by Emulator at Dante's.
In case you haven't yet had the pleasure of catching this live 4-piece nerdgasm you should be, at this very moment, pulling out your phone and 'penciling' it into your icalendar. The next upcoming show is Saturday May, 19th at Tiger Bar where they'll be playing with Delaney and Paris.
Maybe I should let the show I just got back from settle before posting about it. But I can't. There aren't words to describe what I just witnessed and I don't think any amount of time will change that. Holy. Fuck.
I didn't know that it was possible to have that much energy, to fill a room with camaraderie and love and hope and excitement. I didn't know it was possible to make me jump up and down, dancing my face off non-stop for 50 minutes... at least without threat of death. I didn't know you could turn Mississippi Studios into a giant blanket fort in your friend's parents basement and get even the most snobbarific Portland hipster to crack a smile and do more than bob their head. That, my friends, is Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt. All of that said it's, especially impressive to know that tonight's all digital, (nearly) one-man show was probably an unusual happening as TPDR is generally known for having a cacophony of rotating musicians filling the floor and stage.
The only thing that could have made it better? Remembering to clear space on my memory card so that it wouldn't have crapped out while we were in the beating heart-like parachute of awesomeness. DOH! But you know that if this kind of rave is coming from ME, of all people, about dance music, they must be something SERIOUSLY special.
If you're intrigued and want to know more about Terror Pigeon, check out their spot on NPR. INCREDIBLE photos from their show at SXSW, an interview with lead singer Neil Fridd, Or see what they're up to on the TPDR's facebook.
One of the things I really love about Instagram is that it allows people to share moments in time with the world, instantly. I'm guessing, from it's success, that I'm not the only person in the world who often walks around catching a glimpse of something strange or beautiful or funny and has in the past felt really bummed that there wasn't really a way to capture or share that moment. Ok, well I ALWAYS have a camera of some kind on me so capturing these weird things aren't as uncommon for me but the ease of sharing them was a different story.
I'm in the process of backing up and moving a whole lot of images from my laptop to an external drive so that I can free up some space. In the process I've come across a lot of funny little moments I captured but then forgot about. Case and point: These snapshots of a swarm of birds picking every last berry off a tree outside my office window last year. I don't think I'd ever seen this type of bird before and thought they were really quite beautiful with their little flashed of yellow, red and orange. And also a little terrifying because of how many birds there were, how much those little berries looked like human eyeballs and how deftly the birds plucked them from the tree and had no problem swallowing them whole in one quick gulp....
PS- If you're on Instagram you can find me as user BethOlson
also, Ink361 has a cool interface for the web that aggregates a users information and Instagram photos to be viewed without a phone.
Portland is, of course, known for it's, ahem... uniqueresidents. Perhaps this is the reason that I've always loved it here. Regardless of how weird or offbeat I feel, there's always someone else in the room who can beat me by a mile which makes me feel like I fit right in.
Among the geeks and freaks of this fair city there are characters who seem to keep popping up everywhere you look. Two of these Portland Famous Portlanders are the sassy and multi-talentedRocket Ship and the dark and sexy Nik Sin. (otherwise known as Mini Marilyn Manson and one of the owners of Lonesome's pizza; the only place that treats pizza boxes like Adult Happy Meals of Art and rad Music.)
I had the opportunity to check out Nik and Rocket's new show called Portland Famous at the Star Theater last week. I didn't know quite what to expect, which is good since that's kind of the idea. It might be generally summed up as A variety/ talent show which gives Portlanders the opportunity to flaunt their abilities in front of a live audience on a fabulously vintage stage. But if you're expecting hacks and bad karaoke level performances... well, you obviously haven't lived in PDX that long. Coming into it's 4th week the stage has already hosted some of the cities hottest burlesque dancers, comedians, acrobats, circus freaks, chainsaw jugglers... yes, chainsaws... ventriloquists, gender illusionists and other live acts that defy definition.
I had a fantastic time and it wasn't just because of the alcohol being served by possibly the nicest bartender in Portland. If you have the opportunity... No, scratch that... MAKE the time to go catch this show! It will be the best Thursday night you've had in a very, very long time!
I love dressing up. I love costumes and theatrics and public performance and stage makeup and special effects and meeting new people and beer. So it stands to reason that I would love themed pub crawls. And aside from the few I host each year... like our Valentine's Day Zombie Crawl... we make it a point to attend at least a few others. And few things are more wonderful than a costumed pub crawl that I don't have to be in charge of!
SuperCon is delightfully super; with heros, villains, sidekicks and an abundance of nemesis to go around. Competitions in feats of strength, super knowledge trivia and a costume contest among chatting, muscle flexing and revelation of clever Super names and powers. Some of my favorites this year were Rain Man with his umbrella of justice, Door Man who was, indeed, super at making sure the door was always open for people entering and exiting and an adorable couple dressed as the villainous duo Paul and Ester. My friend Isaac wins an honorable mention for his obscenely fun Super Gay Logger.
Last night was a pretty awesome time. It's was not only the first First Thursday of the year, it was my first ever. I know, weird that I wouldn't be all over that but I guess my mental image of art galleries in the pearl district didn't encourage a lot of enthusiasm. But I was all sorts of wrong.
A couple days ago we went out to Kruger's Farm on Sauvie Island with some friends who were in town from Seattle. We actually went out there because the rainclouds looked like they might drift off for a bit and leave us with sun and since Left Coast Country was playing a show out there, it seemed like a perfect late fall afternoon.
What we hadn't expected was a massive Cyclocross race to be in effect. It was muddy. REALLY muddy. It was packed with people jeering good-naturedly at passing riders as they sloshed beers around in one hand and violently shook cow bells with the other. The Captured By Porches beer bus was present, the last of fall crops on display for purchase and parents, kids and dogs all running around like mad, dressed up, covered in mud and having a great time.
Below are a bunch of images from the day. If you're really into cyclocross... or dogs... or people falling down in the mud you can check out the full set on my flickr.
