afrojet

Teen Wolf vs. I Am The Law
Caught some Wolfmother downtown last night. High intensity, good songs, and great musicianship. If you can rate a rock show by how much beer gets spilt on your person, than last night was tops. After the show I smelt like the inside of a beer bottle that’s been ashed in and left out in the rain to ferment.

Speaking of rock, I’m digging this show on VH1 called Super Group. It taps into just about every high school cafeteria conversation I had, in which the daily question was posed, “Ok, if you could create an all-star band, who would be in it?” Funny thing is, I’m sure at least once I would have grouped Scott Ian (from Anthrax) and Ted Nugent together. But then I also owned a Cleveland Indians baseball cap with an Anthrax patch sewed on the back.

This weekend we’re heading down to Pa Skelton’s place to relax. I’m still a bit gun shy about visiting my dad’s place after the raging case of poison ivy that I got on my last visit. I will take many precautionary steps this time, including: showering several times a day, washing my clothes continuously (or just burning them after use), and refusing to step outside the comforts of home.

Bonus: dead people on Myspace: Bukowski and Charles Mingus.

Sunday Explosions
In memory of the Trojan nuclear plant, I am sipping java from my mug that bears a radioactive likeness. When the coffee is hot and steaming, the resemblance is uncanny. They blew the I-5 landmark up yesterday. Did you see it? If you didn’t, here’s video. And there’s also a Flickr pool.

In other explosion news…

…yesterday we got hit with some ferocious spring monsoons. They came fast and powerful and lasted only a few minutes but the rainfall was extraordinary. I was out gardening before the first one hit. I gathered up my things and went inside as the rain began to fall. I was standing in the kitchen watching the rainfall and admiring my handiwork out the kitchen window. From out of nowhere, there was a blinding white hot explosion and a simultaneous thunder clap. The thunder clap was the loudest I’ve ever heard in my lifetime. The explosion looked to have come from about the middle of the yard. It looked like a thousand flash bulbs all going off at the same time. I jumped about three feet in the air. The cats went into a panic. The power went out.

The power came on about two hours later but subsequent thunder showers kept knocking us off the grid. Could the gods be angry about the destruction of a nuclear plant? Doubtful, but possible.

More About Maintenance
The Master Wrench, an auto repair shop up the road from The Ranch, dishes out the sage wisdom. Every month or so they refresh the sign with some good horse sense.

Right now there are no less than five dogs having a shouting match in the neighborhood. It sounds like reality television. I wonder what they are talking about.

I now own a patio umbrella. I am all grown up.

I am down to my last four pieces of salt water taffy. This makes me anxious.

We are having a heat wave in Portland and I can’t figure out how to turn on the central air.

I have gone through two toothpicks this morning, yet all I’ve consumed is coffee.

Sea Songs for Volume & Flotsam for Breakfast
A grand weekend at the coast celebrating birthdays (mine) and relationships (ours). Saturday, I had one of those perfect days. Everything was sunshine slow, young, ripe & oceansized. We cruised the beaches, scored at the shops, and the golf balls went far and true. We ate famously well. Locals pointed our bellies to the Sea Hag restaurant for dinner. I got down with a whole Dungeness Crab. Just annihilated the creature. By the end I was wearing butter and bits of crab all over my shirt. The wait staff couldn’t bring napkins fast enough. A little girl at the next table stared in rapt amazement. The protein buzz came swiftly as I dug in. By the end I felt like I could sprint at top speed to Lincoln City. It was an event. Our lead waiter, was an awesome guy who cheered me on and rubbed my shoulders like a heavyweight boxing coach. Funny enough, Sunday morning – still dizzy and recovering from Crab hangover – we waddled down to breakfast at the resort. I wanted a heaping mound of french toast. The waiter came to our table and damn if it wasn’t the same waiter from the night before at the Sea Hag. It was just one of those weekends. Perfect.

A Morning Smolder on the Shoulder
Daily occurrence. Around 8:30 every morning this week a women in here late 40’s driving a newish Audi station wagon pulls up and parks outside our house. She rolls down her window and lights up a cigarette. She smokes about half the cigarette, blowing the smoke out the open window. Then she carefully throws the cigarette out onto the street and drives off. I find this rather fascinating.

Van Halen’s Jump (mp3) as performed by Mambo Kurt, He also does an excellent version of Fugazi’s Waiting Room.

Timber Town
Portland’s a tuff town for sports fans. It doesn’t have a professional baseball team or a professional football team. Its basketball team is the laughing stock of the NBA. If you were luckily enough to have been born and raised here, then you probably get into the college football thing. But for the transplant, of which Portland has great numbers, the options are few. Lucky for the transplant as well as the native, we’ve got the Portland Timbers. Portland’s USL soccer team.

We went to a game Friday night which happened to be the season home opener. It was a great time: outdoors, fairly cheap, and a generally enthusiastic and roady crowd. Kinda reminded me of Saint Paul Saints games back in Minnesota. The Timbers played (and beat) the Minnesota Thunder Saturday night. That would have been a swell game to see. Stupendous intoxication was the right of most fans Friday night. By half-time the majority of the crowd was falling all over itself. A guy wearing a safari hat tried to pick a fight with me in the beer garden (over what, I’m still totally unclear).

This weekend the misses and I celebrated our one year anniversary. Woot! Unfortunately we picked a restaurant that wasn’t the most vegetarian friendly. We’re still learning the good spots in town. We’ve had to eat our fair share of Risotto, which seems to be the default ‘Vegetarian’ selection at most high-end restaurants.
We’ll make up for it this weekend – a little time at the the beach for some well deserved R&R.

Hair Pride
What’s up with Judy Dench’s period ‘fro in Pride & Prejudice? I love it. You could hide a whole battalion of soldiers in that coiffure. She should have won an Oscar for the hair alone. I wish I could go back in time and make a ’short’ staring Judy Dench and Klaus Kinski. I would have them just standing in some field yelling insults at one another until all hell breaks loose and Judy punches Klaus right in the kisser. It would win many awards.

Question: Why do television news ‘reporters’, when doing a piece on boxing or a particular boxer, feel the need to step in the ring and ‘go a round’ with their news subject? This adds to the story how? Usually the fighter just toys with the reporter and perhaps lands one weak punch before the reporter laughs and throws in the towel. Just once I’d like to see the boxer pull no punches and ludicrously pummel and knock out one of these reporters.

Slash And Burn
An active but relaxing weekend which included: veggie barbecuing, some delirious Xbox killing, watching the NFL draft through sleepy morning eyes (AJ Hawk was a good pick up for the Packers), a visit to the Japanese Gardens, plant purchasing, outdoor patio furniture purchasing, and a heap of yard maintenance.

When we moved into the Ranch, it became apparent that the outdoor estate had not been cared for much in the previous years. Everything was overgrown, trees were hugging other trees, bushes were sick, and weeds were happily in command of the terra. Thus, our main landscaping priority has been removal. Cut it. Slash it. Dig it up. Trim it down. My deforestation scorecard reads ‘four’ but could well reach eight to ten by Summers end. Holly trees are my new enemy and a formidable one at that; their stabbing pointed leaves bring forth fresh cascading strings of expletives. They make me wish I owned a backhoe equipped with twin front-mounted flame-throwers. And, while we are on the subject of pointy stabbing flora, can I just say: fuck roses. I hate roses. They’re ugly, gangly, gothic bushes that look pathetic most of the year and inflict way more damage than they are worth. Fortunately, we got tons of ‘em. And, with zen-like patience, I will enjoy ripping apart each and everyone of them. The misses, single-handedly destroyed two yesterday. The bastards got deep roots tho. I wonder if I can get that backhoe on Craigslist.

Someday we actually hope to start planting something.