A summation of this trip

I'm sitting in wet boxers. On a Comfort Suite loveseat. In Portland. It is our first night in town. We went to a Rogue bar, which was really quite something. I got the hat from there. We tried to attend a Trailblazers game tonight, only to find out that the cheapest tickets left were $100-plus. About a half-hour ago, Sean and I hit up the Comfort Suites pool and hot tub, just before closing. Hence the clingy boxers. We also went to a Burger King across the street, where, I leading the way, we ordered steakhouse mushroom 'n' swiss burgers with veggie patties. The Burger King was completely empty, so I don't think the cashier minded the special order. Tomorrow, we head to the famous Powell's Books, as well as a number of breweries. Photos of Portland will follow.

Thanksgiving dinner and Rachel Getting Married

Sean and I had Thanksgiving dinner with Thomas (Sean's friend with whom we're staying) and his family. It was a warm, pleasant time. Every pissant bone in my body was melted.

After dinner, Sean and I went to Rachel Getting Married. I thought it was quite good, despite the severe case of motion sickness that struck me after five minutes of jittery camerawork. The director, Jonathan Demme, shot Married in the Dogma 95 tradition, a movement I've always liked in theory more than in practice (look, we use cinematic artifice to make the film look like a documentary. so natural! so real!)

The camerawork aimed for a psychological effect (intimacy) but instead got a physiological one (nausea). Assuming that you might be less prone to this side-effect than I am, I'd highly recommend Married. I loved how the film was political at heart, yet never once made any of its themes explicit. The marriage in Married, both the actual ceremony and the interracial union in particular, represents a liberal wet dream of multiculturalism and collectivism (notice how Demme incorporates video his actors shot into the final movie). So, in short, it's fun, devastating, and always engaging to watch Anne Hathaway self-destruct amidst the blue state Utopia.

Music I've bought this trip

This trip will be a bit of a last hurrah for me in terms of buying music. At least for a month or two, I plan to go on vacation from obsessive record store rummaging.

So here are the discs I've picked up -- all used, all under 10 bucks -- on this trip.

Sonic Youth: Sister
Pavement: Wowee Zowee
Patti Smith: Easter
Charles Mingus: The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
Iggy and the Stooges: Raw Power
Wire: Pink Flag
Brian Eno: Here Come the Warm Jets

I think I could go a month only listening to these records, easy.

First day in Seattle

Wang Chung'd part deux and drive to Seattle

So, we went back to the auto glass repair place. The window was back to normal, though we noticed for the first time that the bandits had left a few items of their own for us. Perhaps they were trading: $1000 worth of electronic devices for a can of tuna and one bent-to-shit Hustler. Chris picked up the Hustler with the tips of his fingers, as our old friend the attendant smiled, "Oh ya, you'd be surprised how much stuff like this we find in people's cars." He then began flipping through the Hustler for a good ten seconds. "As long as they're not kissing each other..."

As we drove away, we spent several seconds theorizing on what that meant. Probably something homophobic, we decided.

Anyway, here are some more photos. These include our drive from Seattle, as well as one choice shot of Chris rocking "The M."

Getting "Wang Chung'd" in Vancouver

This morning, Sean had to wake up at 6am to renew his parking spot in a back alley lot.

At about 6:15am, Chris and I woke up to Sean's stammering voice: "Guys, my car got broke into. They shattered the back window."
















Vancouver has been an interesting time.

The bandits made off with a number of electronic appliances, totaling about $1000 worth of Sean's stuff.

As the sun rose, we killed time in a coffee shop until Broco, a window repair shop, opened at 8:30am. We drove for quite a while to find a coffee shop with parking directly in front of it, so we could keep an eye on the car.

At Broco, we met a very interesting attendant. He referred to our encounter as getting "Wang Chung'd"; suggested that we kill the immediate hours at an "exotic ballet" club featuring "the extreme team"; expressed his disappointment with American strip clubs because the strippers "always had their underwear on"; riffed on his disgust of clean needle programs and drug addicts; and derided Canada's social welfare programs in general, joking "Hell, I bet you guys could get some welfare right now, and you're not even citizens."

Right now we are killing the hours until we can pick up the repaired car. We're considering asking this man for his thoughts on immigrants when we return, to bait him into another diatribe. Something like, "Man, there're a lot of people who don't speak English here. We're not used to that in Iowa. What's the deal?"

I'll post developments as they, well, develop.

More photos from first day in Vancouver and the drive up