Craig and I celebrated the next evening by having a  great dinner out at Le Pigeon, the creators of my most favorite dessert ever (cornbread with ice cream syrup and hot fresh bacon bits), with good friends we keep meaning to make plans with. The food, the company and the celebratory feeling made it one of the best nights in recent memory.

That week-end my father, cousins and aunts came to town for my aunt Martha’s memorial. It was great to spend time with them all, and a special thanks to my neighbor Don for playing guitar at her memorial service. That said, when he and Pastor Sue played “Why Me, Lord?” I lost it.

The next week I headed off to a work site visit in St. Clair County, IL. I arrived at the hotel and learned that my uncle Johnny had passed away. He’d been fighting cancer, but the news was still unexpected. It made my planned stop-over in Little Rock for the week-end even more appealing. I arrived while my grandmother’s maple tree was at the height of its color. Pictures do not do it justice, but here are a few regardless.

It was also the 4th Anniversary (read: free admission) at the Clinton Presidential Library. We took a family trip out there, though our first stop was the Flying Fish for some delicious catfish. I managed to get a candid shot of my grandmother mid-gasp:

All in all, a great trip.

The next week I headed to Corbin/Williamsburg, Kentucky for work on another site visit. I’ve spent more time in Kentucky than any other site we work with besides Portland, and I love it there. There is so much creativity and compassion. This time there were also real tourist destinations, so after the site visit we went to Cumberland Falls:

And on the way back to Lexington we stopped at the original Kentucky Fried Chicken, where the colonel crafted his secret recipe. I even got my picture taken with the life-sized statue already posing on a bench:

The following Saturday Craig and I had the first of two great date nights seeing live music. We first stopped at my colleague Mac’s 50th birthday party celebration, which was lots of fun. Then we headed on to Cassidy’s to meet up with the crew that would be heading to the Crystal for the Drive by Truckers/Hold Steady show. I have lots of pictures from the night, but I’ll just share one of the Hold Steady and one of my clock photos with Patterson Hood of DBT.

When we got to the Crystal Ballroom our friends all headed to the bar area, but Craig and I stayed in the all ages side and made our way to the front. It was a fantastic show. Both bands genuinely enjoyed performing and both were better live than recorded.

Not even a week later we saw a fantastic show at the Doug Fir thanks to Yonna’s encouragement. I wish I could recall the name of the opening act, but suffice to say when we got there no one was standing on the floor and by the time he was done half the crowd had waltzed. Then Tom Heinl of Eugene played a super fun set. Finally, Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs, sent us out on a high note.

For Thanksgiving Craig made a video of us rocking out to Superconductor’s “Bush Pilot”. You can find it on his humanclock channel of youtube.

Saturday we spent the night at our friend Matt’s place in Husum, WA. It was a quick trip, but lots of fun. His house is in a postcard perfect setting. And that’s how I got to December.

]]> http://www.pantiesinapinch.com/?feed=rss2&p=154 0 http://www.pantiesinapinch.com/?p=135 http://www.pantiesinapinch.com/?p=135#comments Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:16:23 +0000 cora http://www.pantiesinapinch.com/?p=135 We don’t have T.V. at the house, which is great now that I have become accustomed to it. Plus, there are lots of wonderful things to watch on the interweb. Two things that came my way this week are particularly worthy of watching.

First the new Red Fang video for “Prehistoric Dog” which  may be the greatest Portland-made rock video ever:

And next my friend Molly’s brother’s Obama mash-up. It’s true that a ton of these have gone around the web in the past year. But I haven’t been sent one since the polls showed what we are all a little uncomfortable believing…there is a high probabiliy that this well-spoken, charismatic and intelligent man may be our next president.

In April we paid a visit to Brick in San Diego. We planned the trip to coincide with one of Spiritualized’s final acoustic mainline shows. It was a great show, and we knew that this summer they would do a band tour in support of A&E. Our hope was that there would be a stop in Portland so that we could see both sides of the band in a year.

Spaceman wears a different pair of silver shoes when he plays acoustic

In fact the two shows were almost exactly six months apart.

One of the great things about Portland is there a lot of venues for shows, most of them small enough that you can always be up close. Monday was a beautiful day and Craig and I rode down to the show arriving during the opening band, Grand Ole Party. The timing was such that we were able to claim spots up front.

The show was fantastic. The band was tight, the song performances were all top notch. These days I only average a show every couple of months, but this was by far the best show I’ve been to in ages. I enjoyed myself start to finish and never found myself thinking about anything beside the show I was watching…with the one exception of wondering if that guy to my left was the guy I’d met a few months before at Fire on the Mountain, eating fried oreos.

Their show was at times a wall of noise, which was eve more pronounced since the last time we saw them was for an acoustic set.  I was glad Craig had remembered to find earplugs before we left, because without them I’m sure it would have been too much.

After the show ended we watched as someone tried to make off with one of Doggen’s slides, only to have their roadie come out and call her on it. I’d notice before the show that he still had the sticker with the size of his shorts on the back, so after that incident I went over and asked if I could take the sticker off his shorts.

Craig went to pay the bar tab and as I stood there waiting the guy I thought I recognized from FOTM asked if I’d enjoyed the show. I told him I thought it was great, asked if he enjoyed it, and then asked why I recognized him. He told me it was probably because he worked at Trader Joe’s.

Then I said, “Would I have seen you eating oreos at Fire on the Mountain?”

He said, “Was I with my cousin?”

“I guess so.”

“You were sitting at the corner of the bar?”

“Yea, that was us.”

And so Patrick and I continued making small talk, when his friend Betty noticed him and introduced him to her friend Martin, noting that Martin used to play with Spiritualized. His friend came back, who was the bigger fan of the band, and he explained to him that Martin had played with Spiritualized. This was further punctuated when the drummer, Kevin, came out and noticed Martin.

I had brought the album cover for my impulsive purchase of A&E on green vinyl in hopes I could get Spaceman to sign it. Eventually we went outside to wait for the band and found Patrick and Richard waiting by the bus. There was a car blocking access to the equipment trailer behind the bus and so everything seemed kind of stalled.

Patrick is makng faces behind Craig

As 1:30am was rolling around I told Craig maybe we should just head home. He looked at me and said, “WWKD?” and I knew, Karen would remain committed to the cause. So I went and asked the roadie if he was touring with the band, and if they were (a) already in the bus (no), and (b) likely to sign something for me (yes). And so we stuck around making small talk with Tim, the roadie, for a bit.

Eventually the tour manager came out and started talking to him, and so Craig went around the corner to Voodoo and bought a donut. Another fan showed up who had a set list he’d managed to get signed by all but Spaceman.

Then the bus driver showed up and the energy shifted. The next thing we knew Betty and Martin were outside talking to Patrick and he was waving us to follow him.

We all headed back into the club and into the “green room.” There was a collection of indie rock boys fawning over Spaceman, and yet I knew I’d have to cut in if I wanted to get my album signed. It took me a few minutes and half a Heineken, but I made my way over, excused myself and asked if he’d sign my record cover.

He noted that he spends lots of time designing the cover and then someone signs right across the front of the cover, he opened the gatefold and showed me a line at the bottom that he’d included in the design, just for signatures:

Craig asked Spaceman if he had a chance to visit Mississippi Records while he was in Portland. He looked at Craig and said something along the lines of, “No, but I met Eric and he gave me a white sleeve copy of his new record. He signed it for me. I was as happy as a school boy on Christmas morning after Santa visits.” His entire demeanor changed with the question, he went from being a doted on musician to a giddy fan in just seconds.

And my asking for an autograph changed the demeanor of the too cool folks hanging around, as I’d suddenly given them an excuse to ask for photos with him, etc.

By now it was at least 2am, so the staff at Berbatis began kicking us all, band included, out. On the way out of the club Craig got a few clock pictures with some of the other band members. This is my favorite, of Betty and Doggen:

You can get a sense of it all through the video Craig put together.

In summary, we went to Spiritualizd, saw a great show and got my record signed thanks to the fact that I recognized a guy who I’d talked to while he ate fried oreos because he knew a girl who knew a guy who used to play in the band that we wanted to meet.

And aside from the street cleaner behind us pushing me to ride faster than I wanted to along SW 3rd Ave, the weather was perfect for a night ride home. Once we got to the Hawthorne bridge there was no better way to wind down from a great night.