What Is That Big Burning Globe In The Sky?
Portland has me to thank, and only me to thank, for the sunshine we are experiencing these days. In 9th grade drama class, I learned the yogi art of morning sun salutations, which I have been practicing for weeks now. Finally, the solar star has felt my energies and delivered upon us its warm yellow polish. Yesterday, I took my lunch outside and soaked up the radiance while I threw bits of english muffins to the Blue Jays. We are supposed to have several days of this weather and I’m looking forward to a little tennis this afternoon to celebrate.

Friday, the misses and I went to the Crystal Ballroom to see the Jeff Tweedy Solo Project. The place was massively sold out and was a completely worthless venue for Tweedy. His quite folk stylings deserve a much more intimate setting and although he probably made good money by selling that place out, he was in a terrible mood due to the fact that the decibel levels of the crowd chatter eclipsed his quiet strumming heartbreak. He stopped the show a few times to lambast the crowd for drinking and being much too social. AND, at one point, as I was trying to nudge my way through the tightly packed crowd I accidently nudged some girl, who acted as if I had punched her square in the solar plexus. Of course, her Andre the Giant boyfriend went ballistic on me and there was much pushing and shoving. Leave it to a Folk concert for someone to go all aggro on me. I’m sticking to the Metal and Hardcore shows, where the crowds are way more polite.

Saturday, the Good Doctor and I went and saw the Albert Ayler documentary, “My Name is Alber Ayler“. The film was part of the NW Film Center’s Reel Music Festival. They had some great films in the series. Sadly the Ayler doc was the only one I got down to see. Next year I’m going to all of them. The Ayler documentary had some mind blowing archival footage including Albert playing at John Coltrane’s funeral.

Superbowl Sunday was a blur of cheese, sour cream, good friends, guacamole, Ghost Recon, spinach dip, singing pepsi cans, Halo, and no-good-referees who ruined the actual game.

Last night I watched the original Nordic flavored film, Insomnia. It was a thousand times better than the American version. It was a good companion to this Icelandic mystery I’m reading called Jar City by Arnaldur Indridason. Currently, my favorite literature genre is Nordic Noir. If only Raymond Chandler had lived in Sweden…

Also, Afrojet quietly turned four years old this weekend. Next year? Kindergarden!