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play this.
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early in the film spinal tap, when the tour still has hope and promise, the band is partying in a hotel room. there’s a knock at the door. a very flamboyant bell boy – presumably a gay man living in whatever shitty middle american town they were playing – enters the room. he takes one look at the happenings inside – the leather pants, the long hair, the general carryings on – and says, ‘oh, thank god! civilization!’
portland has been fucking with my heart for a decade and a half now.
this time was no exception. strange happenings. coincidences en masse. time bent. turned around on us a bit.
between here and there is better than either here or there.
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i was strumming a jay casselman song called ‘never ending land (pretty girls wear red)’ in scotty’s living room while he enjoyed some afternoon recovery.
scotty emerges, says, ‘hey, i know that song,’ and we head out to pok pok noi to get wings.
[*** the wings were so delicious i was almost unable to enjoy them. they made me uncomfortable. mocked the rest of my life's menu. later that night, i learned how they were made. i was drunk, but it involves a vac tumbler (a contraption that looks like an iron lung for a child that creates a vacuum in which vinegar and fish sauce can be forced into the wings with great intensity), a flash freeze, a poaching in a mixture of sugar, fish sauce, and stock (equal parts) creating the sweet sticky goo coating, and a dusting with fried garlic and hot peppers.***]
since we were eating such spicy wings, i told scotty a story about my friend shane in arizona who once came out of the bathroom after taking a morning-after-all-night-wing-party-at-long-wongs shit, and said, visibly shaken, ‘ … … hold me!’
we finish eating. scotty goes to the bathroom. i look at my phone. shane just uploaded a four track version of him and jay playing … no shit … ‘never ending land (pretty girls wear red)’ to my dropbox account.
right?
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play this, too.
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i look up from the aisle seat and this angelic young woman with reddish brown ringlets hanging just below her ears and blood red lipstick and probing green eyes says, ‘that’s my seat.’ she was glowing.
so she sits. cashmere peach sweater, matching linen scarf, one silver ring on her left index finger.
she picks up the sky mall. starts leafing through it. i wait for an opening. it comes quick … it’s sky mall, for fuck’s sake. that thing was made to create openings. i see a photo of a man standing beneath a life sized giraffe, presumably in his own back yard.
‘you look like a girl who could use one of those …’
and so it goes.
annabelle of athens, georgia. twenty one years of age. homeowner. two cats. daughter of music producer david barbee (drive by truckers, dexateens, son volt and former member of the band sugar with bob mould). boyfriend is a russian acrobat. likes cheerios. drives an early 80s toyota corolla. valedictorian of her class.
told me where to play in athens if we ever get out that way. told her to ‘give this cd to your dad.’
lovely lass. timeless beauty. southern grace.
nice flight.
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marley has been working at oregon trout for years. she saves fishes. marley had been through two weeks of shitty work that ended promptly at five o’clock on the day we were to hang out.
marley was ready for a drink.
after an hour of happy hour at free bar, while nibbling on a cheese plate presented on a ping pong table, scotty, marley, and i decided that tonight was a night we were going to give it hell. for old time’s sake …
thirteen years ago at the 500 club, scotty and i met marley. that night she was, as she said, ‘wearing a dress over my pants.’ marley left the bar that night with scotty and i. we all climbed into an old audi that scotty bought for a dollar. there was no passenger seat, so marley and i sat in the back. the sun roof leaked. there was about four inches of standing water sloshing around where the passenger seat should have been. marley and i rode across town with our legs up in the air.
we have nicer cars now. in many ways, little else has changed.
we drank and ate and drank and talked and laughed a bunch.
i took a shit ton of pictures of marley. marley likes pictures. one of the all-time great polaroid wielders, she is. pictures like marley, too. ‘photogenic’ they call it …
scotty’s friend jennell joined us.
when marley and jennell saw each other, they said, ‘hey! i know you! we used to stay up late and get nice with each other!’
marley then turned to me and said, ‘you saw this girl’s band play ten years ago up here at billy ray’s neighborhood dive. spread eagle? punk band? two hot chicks and a dude? remember? spread eagle!’
i don’t know how i could forget spread eagle, but i had.
but i remember now …
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i’m standing in the back of the revival drum shop trying on snare drums.
jake is running them in to me and telling me a little about each one.
suddenly, this woman sticks her head in, takes one look at me, and says, ‘oh, yeah, he’s perfect. come here.’
i said, ‘yes, ma’am.’
a minute later i’m changing into a decemberists t-shirt and modeling it.
the woman taking the picture made the t-shirt. the woman with her was the drummer’s wife.
all in a day’s work …
bought a 70s ludwig arcolite snare. it’s a beauty. carried it all the way home in scotty’s soon-to-be-ex-wife’s duffel bag.
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i walked marley back to her car and went back into scotty’s house, where he was standing in the living room with jennell and sion. or maybe it’s cyan. maybe it’s sigh-on?
sion’s laugh will cure what ails you. soulful and aware. and a sense of humor to match it. she once got bitten on the leg by a chimpanzee. showed me the scar.
she made this:
it hangs here:
just like marley threw in with us 13 years ago, sion threw in with all of us that night. scotty walked up to her as she sat at a table full of people and said, ‘hey, you should come back to our place and hang out.’ so she stood up.
we got high and talked about gingers and things we would like to do before we died. sion wanted to make a wedding dress and learn to fly. i wanted to wrestle a shark to its death and witness a supernova with my own eyes. scotty wanted to finish off his sparkling wine and take off his clothes. jennell wanted to photograph her vagina and display it on bus stops around the city.
i wanted to get my camera …
we played a game called bird muffin horse. you basically sit around and decide if people are a bird, muffin, or horse. scotty was a muffin. jennell was a bird. i came back from getting beer and they all said, ‘ok, kc, you’re a weird one. you’re a bird-muffin.’
‘how can that be?’ i asked.
jennell explained it like this: ‘it’s one in a thousand. very rare. see, you’re obviously a muffin, you know? but you’re also a bird!’
she made is seem so simple …
sion stayed quiet through most of it, but she was a horse-muffin, and deep down she knows it.
there’s an animal in portland that is very rare around these parts. it’s called a single thirty-something woman with no kids who does cool shit. they’re beautiful.
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seeing my old brother scotty was the best part.
scotty’s all time.
scotty’s been through it a lot lately.
scotty’s gonna be alright.
he’s got great friends and neighbors, like tim.
tim trains rattlesnakes.
scotty’s gonna be just fine.
but i miss him alot.
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fucking portland.
tempting little minx you are.
some day i’m gonna come back and make an honest woman out of you.
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Tags: portland
