Portland: Week 1 or “Go With Dennis!”
So I’ve been a citizen (well not technically, I guess) of another city for a week now, and aside from desperately missing my friends and exgf, I’m thoroughly enjoying myself. It’s almost surreal, really; at no point have I ever gone into a bar, restaurant or other public place and heard shitty music playing. In the past two days I’ve applied at five or six places, a fraction of the jobs to which I could have applied, and every one was a job I would ACTUALLY like to have. Aside from the annoying hipsters, I’m surrounded by generally like-minded people, and run into people my age. I’ve had no problem finding ways to entertain myself out and about, cars stop for you when you cross the street, public transportation is my favorite daily adventure and there are ACTUAL music stores with huge selections of ACTUAL music. Hell, today I saw a sign with a stick figure on a skateboard that actually said “Skate Path.” THE CITY CONDONES SKATEBOARDING. It’s almost a sick, sick joke; I keep expecting somebody to jump out and yell “Syke!!!!” at which point everybody around me dons a cowboy hat and Nickelback fills the air.
I love this goddamn town.
Anyway, I’ll go over a little of my adventure tonight, and we’ll put this week behind us.
I was hoping that the move would help to alleviate some of this bizarre ‘artistic anxiety’ I’ve developed in the past year. I’ve ALWAYS been hard on myself, especially artistically, but it’s gotten really bad. I hate every photo I take, I hate every drawing I make, and my progression in musical ability has become, in my opinion, stagnant. Before I left, I purchased a nice expensive pen and a nice expensive sketch pad, hoping to fill it once I got to Portland, but it seems that every time I decide to take my sketchpad with me downtown, I am scared to put the pen to the paper; it remains completely blank. My camera has also not left its bag since I arrived. I don’t know what my deal is, but I decided a good right-lobe icebreaker would be to arrange for a private music lesson.
After some browsing around, I found a guy that appealed to me who was offering bass theory lessons. You get 30 minutes free, to decide if he’s worth a damn, and charged something like $35 an hour after that. I got in contact with him for the free 30 minutes and set it up for 6:20PM on Tuesday the 16th, fully expecting to continue lessons with him. It wasn’t until after I had arranged this that I discovered he toured as a drummer for Pinback for a couple years. I enjoy Pinback a great deal, so I figured this would be a fun experience either way. So tonight I threw my bass in my gig bag, grabbed my iPod and hopped on the train downtown. I’m not entirely sure what my brain is up to all the time, because I seem to confuse really simple, stupid things — at some point on the train trip, I got it in my head that I was going to an address on NW 8th, rather than NE 8th, and got off the train just in time for my appointment…on the wrong side of the river. I decided it wouldn’t be too terrible of a walk, but again got turned around and headed in the wrong direction for some time before I checked a street sign and realized my error. It was then I admitted I wasn’t going to make this appointment, and I emailed the guy from my phone to apologize. While I was at it, I checked Google maps and got correct directions to his studio, as I figured knowing its exact location would come in handy later. I got to the studio an hour late, and he was quite obviously no longer there. I emailed him another quick apology letter, then Google mapped my way to a bar for a beer and something to eat.
The Shanghai Tunnel is probably my favorite bar I’ve discovered so far, and they have a sign out front that says they serve food late, which I’d been meaning to try. Though the Pabst flows like water in this town, I had a couple Heinekens along with both the best french fries and the best veggie burger I’ve ever tasted. Not kidding you. It was still early when I finished my meal, but I wanted to check out some other places, and possibly hit the arcade for some Gorf and a couple more beers.
I’m a goal-oriented guy, and made it a personal goal to be threatened, unprovoked, by a homeless person within my first week in Portland. While I’ve definitely had some interesting experiences with the down-on-their-luck, I had yet to be threatened, and with the one-week mark coming up at dawn, I had to work fast. Somebody up there loves me, because it couldn’t have been more than five minutes after I left the Shanghai Tunnel that I crossed paths with a homeless man who was screaming, at the top of his lungs and to nobody in particular, “I don’t give a FUCK anymore!!!!” It was loud, because I heard it over my blaring headphones, and he was a good ways away. I stopped to watch where he was headed and waited as he entered a cabaret directly across the street from where I stood, still screaming about the fuck he no longer gives. He was ejected about 15 seconds later, now screaming “FUCKIN SLUTS!!!! FUCKIN SLUTS!!!!!!” He walked 20 feet to a bus stop, angrily sat down and started screaming at this helpless woman about how everybody in the cabaret is a fuckin slut. I knew this was my guy. But as I started across the street, he suddenly he shut up! I went and stood at the bus stop next to him, hoping to be randomly threatened, but he didn’t say another word. He must have decided to start giving a fuck again. Disappointed, I left to just wander around the downtown area.
As I wandered, with my now 500 pound bass on my back, my hood up and the smooth, sweaty groove of the new Chromeo album pumping in my ears, I reached a near zen-like state of self-satisfaction. I wasn’t really doing anything, but I was having a damn good time not doing it. I wandered, aimlessly and often in circles, for at least an another hour, having a blast for seemingly no reason. It then occurred to me that my feet were really starting to hurt, having walked for four full hours, and I stopped to Google map my bearings, since I have no sense of direction. I removed my headphones so my increasingly useless brain could process everything on my cell phone screen without distraction when another homeless man walked past me. I paid no attention to him, but he scared the hell out of me when, as soon as he was behind me, he turned and yelled “Go with Dennis!!!” at the back of my head. I turned to see what his deal was, but he had already whipped back around and continued his walk away from me. Well, I’m like 95% sure it was “Dennis”…it could have been “tennis” or possibly “dentist”, as his speech was pretty slurred, and I’m not TOTALLY sure it constitutes a “threat”, but it’s going to have to do. Maybe in his head he WAS threatening me because it was pretty apparent that unless somebody said something, I most likely wasn’t going to go with Dennis. In fact, I hadn’t given Dennis (or tennis or dentists) a second thought; I must just give off that not-going-with-Dennis vibe.
My first of many goals in my new city — accomplished.
October 17th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
a veggie burger? what a sissy.
October 17th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Ha, actually I got the veggie burger cuz it was two dollars cheaper than the real burger. But it was amazing anyway.
October 17th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
dennis sounds like a preety cool dude you should try and find him
October 18th, 2007 at 12:50 am
And go with him?
October 18th, 2007 at 6:56 am
go with your heart child.
October 18th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
yes