Deeper
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Not sure where you're at but it's certainly November 'round here. In honor of this and all the blizzards to come, I've delivered a behind-the-scenes snippet from Deeper.
Jeremy Jones is an ass kicker—I used to travel around with him and his cousin back when I was a young lass trying to make it in the game. Since those days, Jeremy's assault on haphazard, death-is-certain natural terrain has continually amazed me. When folks I know (skateboarders) try to be all, "Snowboarding is easy!" I pat their heads and refer them to Mr. Jones. Pay particular attention to the helmet-cam footage. Terrifying.
wear sunscreen
A song for you. Actually, this one's for Tricia, who first told me about it at a bar in Sedona as we sipped cocktails until tipsy in celebration of life and all those other things. I remember what we were drinking: gin and soda with fresh lime, ginger, and sage. It's like they'd bottled the desert and served it up in a highball glass. But I digress.
Maybe this song is famous, old news, you already heard it a thousand times and I've had my head in the sand the whole time. Who knows. I'm not even sure if it's a good song.
What's interesting, though, is that the vocals are an essay written by a woman named Mary Schmich. It was published in the Chicago Tribune in 1997, and then, according to Wikipedia, "The column soon became the subject of an urban legend in which it was alleged to be an MIT commencement speach given by author Kurt Vonnegut in that same year (in truth, MIT's commencement speaker that year was Kofi Annan)."
Weird, huh? Now listen: Wear Sunscreen
Beacon
Sometimes when the weather says, "100% chance rain," you still wake up to a day like this. In Oregon, November can be a little touch and go when it comes to your sanity. There's the nice days, but then there's also entire weekends where the sound of rain pelting the bricks outside never stops, and suddenly it's 4 o'clock and you never even changed out of your pajamas. A network of coffee stains works its way down your front. It's not pretty.
Anyway, my point is that when you wake up expecting flooding gutters and actually see sun, you better go for it. We drove out to Beacon Rock, a giant outcropping on the Washington side of the Columbia River. Highway 14 through Camas was awash with autumn clarity. The maple trees sprinkled yellow leaves down onto the black road. The sun catching ripples on the inlet waters dazzled our eyes. It was quite a thing to see at a time when I needed beauty in my life very badly.
Hallerween
As stated before, Portland is serious about Halloween. Me, personally—I'm only semi-serious, but I did get dressed up this weekend, twice. On Saturday night, although it was dark and wet with piles of leaves choking the gutters, Lance and I donned our pioneer garb and headed west. Our destination: the Nemoween party. It got weird as all good parties do—packed to the gills with freakshow people, and an unfortunate broken toilet incident that only served to enhance everyone's merriment.
A picture of the group picture we took. Check out NWA!
As it often is, Sunday was a day of rest. I put on a pair of devil horns and rode bikes down to Burnside, where people were celebrating Halloween and the park's 20 year anniversary. We watched the antics until the smell of urine and trash drove us into the parking lot, where the sound of Pissboner (the band) was almost as overwhelming. Just before dark, I rode back up Stark street 57 blocks through hordes of roving toddlers going from door to door with pumpkin-shaped buckets held before them.
Sweet group shot via Dee Dee—or should I say, Black Mamba?
This is Chief Lien To Tail.
Billy quickly discovered—everyone loves Bob Ross!
Dee Dee and I were reppin' primary colors.
Hudson was tending to her tiny bee.
Diamonds and Rust
Good morning. Halloween is coming. Not sure if this happens everywhere, but in Portland people hang Halloween lights instead of Christmas lights. Yep. Strings of orange and purple lit up the night on our bike ride down to the beer store.
Anyhoo, I have something for you. Judas Priest, covering Joan Baez's "Diamonds and Rust." Sung by Joan or Rob, it's a great song—a bit of a poem about when she got dumped by Bob Dylan, or, like, frozen out by him, and how even a decade later, the ghost of it still lingers.
I can't listen to Joan Baez a lot. It gets a little operatic for me, or something. Not rockin' enough. But I do think she's a bad ass. If you don't agree, or even if you do, you should watch this—Joan Baez: How Sweet The Sound.
And without further ado: