Favorites 11.3.14

Christoph Waltz: Apropos number 4 on this list—an adept character actor that plays hyper-charistmatic good guy and bone-chilling bad guy within a hair's breadth.

Sauna-ing post gym: Sweating in a hot, cedar-scented room is a nice way to battle gray-day doldrums, seasonal sniffles, stress, and so on. The steady onslaught of heat causes blood flow to flush through your body in a healing manner. It also relaxes the mind and soothes the respiratory system, breaking up phlegm and the like (which is why old-timey doctors always sent their TB patients to the hot-ass, dry-ass desert).

Theo Ginger Dark Chocolate: The crushed-velvet richness of dark-as-night chocolate; the crunch and spicy warmth of candied ginger. New lesson from my corner? Buy the good chocolate—it's just worth it (esp. if you're down for getting all feel-good-organic-fair-tradey) (which I am).

Django Unchained: Did y'all know this is streaming on Netflix right now? Def worth a second watch. Lurid, violent, funny, badass—Quentin T does these things pretty great, I reckon.

All Hallows

The year is turning toward darkness—here sits Halloween already. It's the portent of a season when holidays barrel haphazardly at you. I'm cool with Halloween, though, cuz it's a holiday of a different sort (I.E. it isn’t for family, it’s for me and for you).

Costume-wise, I tend to do the bare minimum to not be deemed a hack or unfun. I also generally attend a party where I lean against a wall admiring all the magnificent costumes people arrive wearing. Edgar Allen Poe and his spectral mistress, Eazy-E and Ice Cube, the bunny from Donnie Darko, Bob Ross, et cetera, et cetera. At a certain point, I always seem to discover myself tipsy, this coinciding with a realization that I've lost all my friends. Suddenly all the masks are jeering at me, all the face paint nightmarish. At this point, I leave—without telling anyone good bye, just quietly wandering home to sleep the sleep of the dead and not wake up again until November.

Anyway, I've never stayed home and handed out candy to the little people roving from door to door with pumpkin-shaped buckets held before them. Is this any fun?

Bob Ross in all his glory, some pioneers heading westward ho, and NWfrickinA.

See? I don't try very hard.

Sometimes all you need is a couple rolls of duct tape to dress up. But then what happens when you have to pee? I don't remember how Billy solved this dilemma. 

Stormytelling

Normally I do spectacular things on Saturday nights.

But this Saturday night I spent on the top of a ladder in the darkness and storm wrestling with pieces of corrugated roof that were torn away by the raging wind. I employed a power drill in the spectral light of a flashlight with dying batteries. I sliced my finger pulling wet screws out of my back pocket. I teetered dangerously atop the tippy-top rung ("this is not a step") and legit almost fell three and a half times.

All the while the gusting air perpetuated savagery in the huge evergreen above my head, adding to the sense of urgency—the immediate need to fix the patio roof, I.E. prevent the downpour from pooling right there at my backdoor and (as anyone would) inviting itself inside.

Anyway, a huge storm came through this weekend, like a vanguard of winter, and as I met its wrath on a Saturday night while most people I knew had run off eating and drinking and such, I suddenly knew that, for real, I am grown up—like a grown up grown up.

But the next day I slept in, ate peanut butter from a jar, and skated all afternoon in the newborn sun. Okay?

New This Week

I don't really buy nice things for myself because I'm hustling to pay for my mortgage and my lifestyle, but now that I think about it—my lifestyle is a nice thing that I buy for myself. I'm lucky. Life is good. Etc. Etc.

However, I did just acquire this new table/bench set, custom built for my tiny kitchen nook by a talented pal named Brock. Do you know him? A wizard of woodworking; a master of maths, saws, and impact drivers.

So, this table, it's more than nice—it's magnificent. Made from Douglas Fir, or doug fir to the layman. So warm in color, you think it might be warm to touch. I plan to keep it forever and have it always piled high with stuff—like open dog-eared magazines near cream-filled morning coffees, like glasses of wine, like games of dice, like notepads filled with lists, like cutting boards of bread and cheese, like pumpkins being carved with a cookie sheet to save the seeds.

Saturday Night Stuff

On Saturday night, I rode my bike all over town, but mainly to a foot stompin' show near Belmont Street—a benefit for My Voice Music put on by The Lonesome Billies, my fave Portland old-country band.

Last year, I attended the same event, with the same people, on the same bike. This is a big deal, because it's late October—and normally you can't ride your bike drunkly around town in late October on account of the damn, damn rain. However, both this year and last, soaring down dark, empty streets with leaves flying away in our wake happened, so perhaps it's all predestined.

Along this ride, we breaked for a stiff drink on Burnside Street, forged a crowd waiting to get into a "Burning Man after party," and were nearly scooted off the road by a left-turning semi truck. It was all good—all part of the journey.

Upon our arrival, pro-skater Leo Romero’s band Travesura played—who I've been following since I stumbled upon their show last winter—and much dancing immediately ensued. The place was filled with pals. Strings of white lights winked overhead. Arms hung over the necks of neighbors, and everyone sung along. It was a pure good time (for a good cause) that should def not be missed by the likes of you next year, okay?

October street gang.