Indian Jewelry is a self described avant-trash-psychedelic combo originally formed in LA but recently relocated to Houston, TX for some strange reason. Jackie-O-Motherfucker is a Portland band active for many years and has undergone many transistions and it seems like they are the headliner at this particular show although I am a little confused by the flyer. But in any case it would be a “sonicated” evening. Jackie-O’s sound is derived directly from the psychedelic jams of Popol Vuh and Bardo Pond i.e. ambient psychedelic music erupting suddenly with hellish visions but still retaining a mutant melody. Indian Jewelry on the other hand could be placed in the same vein but their emphasis is more on free-form noise and feedback to achieve psychotic levels atleast that is what it seemed like from their 1st album. They are touring in support on their forthcoming album, which if the samples placed on their Myspace indicate that they might have shifted towards a more song based approach.

Cover charge is $7 and please do not forget to bring ear plugs.

Someday Lounge
125 NW 5th Ave
Portland, OR – 97209

We all know Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton are fighting for the democratic nomination.  Just tonight, most news stations are predicting Hilary Clinton as the winner in Pennsylvania.  With that, they move on to Indiana and then Oregon, among a few other states.  Oregon has delegates to add to someone’s tally, but not enough to push someone over the top to garner the nomination.  That said, Oregon is way in play.  We’ve seen Barack, Bill Clinton and Hilary visit over the past few weeks.  Granted, I was surprised to see that Hilary visited Hillsboro instead of Portland, but then again, maybe she realizes Oregon may be an Obama stronghold (I’m speculating here.)  It has just been announced that Bill Clinton will be in Portland this Friday and Saturday.  More details to come.  If you missed either of the candidates or Bill or Chelsea on their recent visits, you will definitely have the opportunity to see them in the near future.

This is soooooo exciting.  Oregon is usually so far off in the primaries that our votes honestly don’t end up counting.  The candidate is usually chosen by the time we get to vote.  I have always hated that about our electoral system, but what can one do.  I championed our attempt to move Oregon to Super Tuesday, but now am glad that was never approved or sanctioned.  Now we get to take our place on the national stage as a deciding state in what for me is a life changing opportunity for a President.  I wonder if Stephen Colbert will come to town to film some of his shows.

If you haven’t registered to vote yet, you still have till the end of April to do so.  Let your vote be the change Portland.  Wooo hoooo!

It you are ever without power for an entire evening – I highly recommend a game of Spongebob Squarepants Monopoly. And margaritas. On the rocks of course – your blender doesn’t work, remember.

No – really.

So because we live in this neighborhood – a silly bird took down our power for more than 10 hours yesterday. It was off when I got home from work – my husband had just checked with PGE and they estimated 7pm for restoration so we decided to head out for dinner. Mexican food and margaritas sounded good, so we headed over to one of our favorite Mexican joints – El Dorado on NE Glisan just west of 82nd. It’s not a fancy place and I’m sure their food is to basic or Americanized for many Portlanders ‘authentic’ taste-buds – but their seafood dishes are stuffed full of fresh ingredients, simply spectacular and their margaritas are to-die-for! Gigantic, tasty, strong and cheap. And the staff is always super friendly. A perfect place to spend a powerless evening.

Once we got home, we discovered we still didn’t have power – so we figured we’d better look for flashlights and candles where there was still enough daylight to do so. Normally after dinner out like that we probably would have ended up watching TV or a movie, or on our computers… but instead we pulled a game out of the credenza… and set up a table full of candles, plastic pineapples and headed into Bikini Bottoms.

Our power didn’t come back on until after we’d gone to bed (well after the second estimate of 9pm) so not only was this a good test for us to be sure that we did have a supply of candles, flashlights with working batteries and a radio with batteries, but I believe I read somewhere that this is “turn off your TV week” – which is something I’m really bad at doing – so it was kind of nice actually that the dumb bird forced us to do so.

I highly recommend it.

On Friday evening, we hosted a visitor to Portland and took them out. Initially we had planned on checking out the sunset from the Rose Gardens, but she had already seen that, so we had to think quickly. We were headed towards the Pearl, so decided to stop in at Henry’s for a drink.
Henry’s is the restaurant and bar located in the former Henry Weinhard’s brewery block on W. Burnside. It really is a nice place and I have only heard great things about it. We even had our holiday party there and it was a blast. The bar @ Henry’s has about 100 different beers on tap and this isn’t 20 flavors of Bud Light. They have brews from all the local microbreweries and some not from our hood like Victory and Dogfish Head. They also have a cooling strip. Yup, you know that frosted part of an old fridge? Well, they have that surrounding the bar for you to keep you beer or cocktail cool. What a great invention.
My only challenge with Henry’s is the crowd. On a Friday evening, it was full of the beautiful people – yet not necessarily the natural beauty. Lots of hair, makeup and some silicon. Granted, I was there with my beautiful wife and I’m no slouch, so I guess I’m being hypocritical :). Great for eye candy for boys and girls, but not my cup of tea. Too bad too as the beer selection is superb. I guess I’ll have to wait for the new Deschuttes to open.
Oh, and so you don’t think our visitor only saw Henry’s, we had a great dinner at Nostrana and then dessert at PIX. MMMM….Pizza followed by chocolate.

04 19 2008

Originally uploaded by dieselboi

We went to the Hollywood Theater to see Raiders last evening and had a ball. The event was sold out all weekend – 3 shows – and raised over $9200 for the Austin Miller Scholarship fund. Well done Portland! The filmmakers – Eric Zala and Chris Strompolis – were also in attendance, introduced the film, and answered questions after wards.

My favorite part of the movie was the truck scene. You may remember the famous scene where Indy is thrown through the windshield and is hanging off the front of the truck only to slide under the truck and on the ground to get back into the truck. Well, the boys (all between 15-16) recreated that scene. And they did it well with stunts. It was crazy to see a moving truck with Indy and the Nazis fighting and doing stunts, all on their own without much supervision or guidance from professionals. They even recreated the scene where the German soldier flies into the water.  After the movie, they discussed that scene saying they salvaged the truck from the swamp, removed the engine, and rigged a braking system. Yet all the stunts were done by them.  Remember, this started in 1981 when the kids were 12.

What an amazing accomplishment by these young guys 20 some odd years ago. And to have their VHS tape end up on Steven Spielberg’s desk in 2003 is just dumb luck. They even state that when they were contacted out of the blue by Hollywood, they thought it was a joke.

Thank you Mike from Bridge City Comics and Matt of Salty’s Dog Shoppe for organizing this event for Portland. It turned out to be an amazing time.

04 19 2008

Originally uploaded by dieselboi

Tonight was the first ever Food Cart Fest. The fest, held in an old warehouse underneath the Fremont Bridge, was a fund-raiser for Mercy Corps NW and Hacienda CDC. For $5, one got to sample the wares of eleven local food carts. A food cart fest is a great idea, as Portland’s food carts sport some of the tastiest food anywhere. Raising money for two very deserving charities was also a fine idea. As a fund-raiser, I’m betting Food Cart Fest was a smash hit. As a celebration of Portland’s food carts, however, it came up a bit lacking.

Don’t get me wrong – there were a ton of people there. That’s fantastic for the charities, and I am absolutely stoked that they made a lot of money tonight. However, the organizers did not expect this many people – and that was bad for the attendees. I arrived at 6:30 (a mere hour after festivities began), and Julia’s Mobile Cafe had already run out of food. Most of the other carts had long lines – made worse by the fact that they had to snake around large, empty tables (tables are a fine idea in the bar area, but when the sample given is no more than a couple of mouthfuls, there’s really no need (or time) to sit down with the sample). The lines moved fairly quickly – the notable exception was the line for the Altengartz Bratwurst cart, which took over 20 minutes. By 7:45, about half of the carts had run out of food, and the crowd began to clear out. When I left after 8:00, there were only a few that were still serving – and there was nearly an hour left in the event.

That said, given the choice between overcrowding and not enough food, or undercrowding and not enough money being raised, I’m in favor of the former every time. Still, this is Portland. Food Carts are HUGE. A Food Cart Fest is a fantastic idea – the kind of things Portlanders would come out for in droves. To me, it seems obvious that the event would be highly attended.

But, in the large scheme of things, my complaints are minor. As a charity raising event, it was a huge hit – and that is fantastic. Here’s hoping that they make this an annual tradition. Once the wrinkles are ironed out, this will be a winner.

The food I did sample was awesome (and those Brats were worth the wait). For me, the winner was the maple bacon ice cream (with real bacon bits!) from Junior Ambassador. Fantastic stuff.

Oh yes – bald headed men are S-E-X-Y!!

And even more so when they – and women too – are going bald to help raise money for kids with cancer.

This weekend is the 6th annual St. Baldrick’s hair-raising event for children cancer research. The Rose City Rollers are donating a portion of the proceeds from their bout on Sat. to St. Baldrick’s – and a couple of the girls are shaving their heads at the event. Then on Sunday the Barracuda downtown turns from a frightening meat-market pick-up joint into a festival family-fun atmosphere with the highlight being more than 100 people getting their heads shaved in support of these kids and raising money for research.

My friend’s dad is one of those getting his head shaved in support of a little boy named Gabriel. We joke that he doesn’t have much hair left to shave, but that all 12 strands are going. He volunteers with the Children’s Cancer Association and is close to a lot of these little kids. It’s a pretty cool thing.

There are fun activities for kids and families on Sunday, so if you’re looking for something to do with the kids…take ’em to Barracuda (how funny is it to say that?!) And help the Portland St. Baldrick’s team get to their goal.

OK for people who don’t know who Mark Kozelek is, I will enlighten you. He was a member of “Red House Painters” (in San Francisco). These days he alternates between with his “Sun Kill Moon” project and his solo work. But his work with the “Red House Painters” is the shit. It is folk music taken to another dimension and really worth checking out. Kozelek is touring in support of his new solo album and a re-release of his Sun Kill Moon album, which has been getting pretty decent reviews. The tickets are going to be $17 and the show starts at 8pm. I have never been to the Aladdin Theatre since most of the bands that come through are pretty shitty in my opinion but once in a while they do have good people coming through and Kozelek is a good example. Lets support Kozelek in hope that maybe Aladdin will get more artists like him coming through more frequently.

Aladdin Theatre
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave
Portland, OR – 97202

We all love free things don’t we. Well, how bout tickets to Raiders of the Lost Ark – The Adaptation playing this Saturday evening at the Hollywood Theater. Portland Metblogs is excited to join other Portland sponsors such as The Portland Mercury, Video Verite, and EasyStreet as a sponsor of the premiere of Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation at the Hollywood Theater here in our fair city, April 18-19.

We have 2 free tickets to Saturday evening’s show @ 7pm. Just answer the following trivia question and we’ll get you on some list:

“In addition to Mustachiado Magnum hunk Tom Selleck, which other famous actor took only 48 hours to turn down the role of India Jones before it eventually went to Harrison Ford?”

Leave your answer in the comments.

UPDATED:  MikeVogel won the tickets.  Well done sir.  Geebee, as Matt stated, sorry, there aren’t any more free tickets available, but since you were only 4 minutes behind Mr. MikeVogel, Metblogs would will host you 2 tickts to Saturday evening’s show.  We’ll be in contact.  Thanks for playing!