Captain Slow is my new hero!

Yikes!  What am I doing up here on teh internets when Top Gear is on?!?

too bad they're not lovin' the Beetle...maybe if they'd chosen the Turbo hardtop model.  Like the Pea!  Who is now a paid for Pea!  Mine, mine, mine!!!

Yippee Kai Yay (read my lips), Motherf*cker!

Flipping channels late at night, after the Masterpiece Theatre Foyle's War repeat on public t.v., what do I come across but the Fifth Baddest Film Baddie Ever!!!

It was Alan Rickman's impeccably dressed, tidily bearded and completely swoon-worthy Hans Gruber in Die Hard. 

'cept it was on A&E so all of the bad words just weren't spoken.

Characters' mouths moved but nothing came out!

 

...made the memorable line spoken by Bruce Willis' John McClane early in the film and Rickman's Gruber at the end "Yi Pee Kai Yay, MotherF*cker!" (sans F*cker) just a little bit lame.  

Thankfully, there's You Tube 

& I'm not sure if I imagined it or they missed a "f*ck!" spoken by McClane late in the film.  Considering every other word said in that film seemed to have "f*ck" as at least part of it, it's a wonder they only missed one.  Hee!

It was a Marc Chagall kind of evening

Had an errand to deliver a box - a gift - from one set of friends to a mutual friend, Cynthia so we decided to hand it off over dinner at Pok Pok - a delightful Thai restaurant on SE Division Street here in Portland.    It's one of my favorite restaurants.  You sit outside in all weather.  In winter there are plastic curtains around the tables and a propane heater on each.  Quite cozy really.  Barbara and Brian took me there on my birthday on a rainy night in January.  

Cynthia is an even more adventuresome foodie than I am - she tried and liked  the drinking vinegars.  Plum.  It was interesting mixed with soda over ice.  Kind of sweet and plummy but definitely vinegar.  I stuck to my usual Campari and soda with lime.   We shared boar collar meat rubbed with garlic, coriander root and black pepper grilled and spiced with a chili-lime-garlic sauce.  Chinese mustard greens came on the side, chilled under crushed ice and a roasted game hen salad - the restaurant's signature game hen (leftovers perhaps) with long beans, cucumbers and cherry tomatoes with a chili-lime-garlic dressing.  Yum!  Chili peanuts on the side.  Sticky rice for Cynthia.  We were too stuffed to do dessert.

We got talking about our blogs and though I'd read Cynthia's posts about glass I hadn't known about her past writing as a restaurant critic or the posts about her colorful neighborhood out in the burbs of Southwest Portland.   She told me about Yuri the supposed house painter, whose wife sported couture clothes and a gigantic diamond ring.  They put their house up for sale and bought a condo in the Pearl.   

Cynthia went to check the house out when the realtor had it open. The decor was so dramatic - bold colors on the walls, red and black tile in the kitchen that didn't go with anything else in the room, red shag carpet with brown spots (maybe the furniture covered them when the house was occupied?) it was not an easy to sell house.   It was empty save a samovar and a painting bolted to the wall over the stairway, which upon inspection appeared to be a Chagall!  One of the horse and circus themed  paintings.  But it couldn't be.  Normal folks out in Beaverton don't own paintings worth millions that should be in museums.  Cynthia thought perhaps she'd misunderstood Yuri and he wasn't a house painter but a talented artist.  Why then was he channeling Chagall?  She remembers the painting exactly today - years later - spent a long time trying to find a reference to it amongst catalogues of Chagall's work.   

Yuri's house never sold so he had to sell the condo and move back.  Other neighbors confirmed that Yuri was indeed a house painter - and he'd done a terrible job painting theirs.  Spilled paint all over the carpets.  A mess.   Not exactly a skilled craftsman.  Perhaps the job was a cover?  They say that you can tell the ex-KGB agents from the Rolexes they wear.  Maybe Yuri chose a Chagall over the watch?

Cynthia had to go to make molds for a pate de verre demo this weekend so I went down to Holocene for Three Leg Torso by myself.  Great show!  The band hung out in the bar beforehand and I saw Courtney but he was talking with others and I was too shy to try to talk to him.   They played a brilliant set and the crowd wanted one more.  Courtney's mic hadn't worked the entire show - was funny he was giving his between song patter to Bela one line at a time to tell to us in his mic.  He found a functioning one to introduce the last song about his dog, Chagall, who had gone missing a day or two before.  It was a quiet, introspective tune - much in contrast with the exuberant set we'd just heard - and we were to be very quiet in case Chagall was outside looking for Courtney and could hear.

Marc Chagall was born on July 7th 121 years ago.  Perhaps July 7, 2008 was the day Courtney's dog went missing?

This is my favorite Chagall painting "Paris Through The Window" from 1913.   I have a poster of it that I carefully hauled back from Paris 14 years ago (odd of itself - 'cause the painting is in the collection of the Guggenheim in NY).  It's still in its tube, unframed.  I should get it out frame it and put it up.  Maybe Chagall the dog will come by?

Doll Test, The Tripwires, Model Rockets and Jonathan Richman

In a continuing effort to see/hear as much live music as possible, we trekked to beautiful Ballard, Washington (Seattle neighborhood immortalized in the Robyn Hitchcock song, "Viva Sea Tac") to the Tractor Tavern to hear Doll Test and John Ramberg's two bands The Tripwires and The Model Rockets - the last a reunion show.  Great fun!   I'd never heard The Model Rockets live or Doll Test at all before.  Both were awesome!  See/hear for yourself!

That's what I should have been doing for last New Year's...

& Here's Doll Test



They were handing out cds Friday night - got the one named for and containing that song. I rather like them.

Apologies - I can't seem to find any Model Rockets videos. They all seem to be about 'real' model rockets for some inexplicable reason. Hmmpf!

We made it back to Portland as dawn was breaking, oh 5-ish a.m. Caught a few hours sleep, waking in time to get Salvador to his doctor's (veterinary) appointment. My little old man. He's on high blood pressure meds now. The doc said he was doing better - blood pressure looking good - yay! 17 is getting up there for a Tabby Boy.

Decided late in the afternoon to go out to Jonathan Richman's Aladdin Theater show - luckily not sold out! Was my first time to hear him live - knew him mostly by reputation and from hearing others do his songs ("Pablo Picasso" done by Bowie on the Reality album...) Barbara had been a big Modern Lovers fan back in the day.

He didn't do Pablo Picasso, but he did this



and had everyone singing the chorus with him in Portland, too.

Got Three Leg Torso at Holocene on Wednesday to look forward to. Haven't heard those guys in a long time. A friend of mine was Bela Balogh's girlfriend's house mate years ago so all of the barbeques at their place ended up Three Leg Torso gigs - nice! Ran into Courtney a while back at a show - either Richard Thompson or Nick Lowe, I can't remember which.  Wait... it was longer ago than that - it was Bill Rieflin's Slow Music project.  The show where Peter Buck was playing his Rickenbacker with a butter knife.  

Here's a preview



On the Portland Streetcar - how very (weird) and Portland! Pirates (finally made it to the Pirate store in the Lloyd center today) and Gypsy music, what more could you want?