Forgetting to post is like, number one on my favorite things to do lol. This post is from a few days ago.
Saturday Market
The Saturday Market is apparently one of the bigger tourist “Must Do’s” in Portland, and I can see why. It’s a massive market of street vendors, food trucks and handmade goods. I was surprised to see the price some of the leather goods were fetching. I feel like every time I see something I always think to myself, “Man, I could make that” but the truth is, I didn’t. They did. So I’ll just buy theirs lol.
I ended up getting Polish pierogies, chicken cotlet and a cucumber salad. It was really good. I’ve been trying to be more adventurous with food lately, and I saw a skewer place that was doing cuttlefish balls so I had to try them. It was only $2.50 for the skewer itself and it had 4 half balls on it. I was somewhat disappointed that they were cut in half, but for the price I couldn’t really ask for more lol. It was interesting. Chewy as expected with a stronger fish flavor than I expected but it was still very mild. Would order again!
Powell’s Book Store
Really cool book store! It was huge, and it’s one of those big touristy draws of Portland. Actually, the hostel I’m at for the night is right near there. I’m considering going back, but I won’t commit to it because I didn’t go back to the cute flower girl either. It’s just difficult to get stuff done! There’s so little time each day. The store had a “rare books” section and Paul was telling me his ideal aesthetic is like, similar to “a scotch drinking chair in a lodge with a globe and an old-timey map on the wall.” I feel like that rare book room had half of his dream decor in it.
The store has a manga section but like most manga sections it’s tough to find anything because they’re either missing volumes or I have it at home but didn’t read it yet. I’m looking at the copy of, “Destroy All Humans They Can’t be Regenerated” Vol 1 that is gathering dust on my shelf at home. They’re apparently on volume 4 already and I haven’t even opened mine. All in all, Powell’s was a pretty cool stop. I like that it’s close to where I am today (Monday -> Tuesday) so I might head there later and look for something to read on the plane ride home.
Mox Gaming Lounge
We spent the lion’s share of the afternoon over at Mox Gaming Lounge. It was really cool because you could just borrow board games from the library, which wasn’t as extensive as Guardian Games, but you could sit down and order food/drinks and play whatever at the table. We had a good time with Hues And Cues and Betrayal At Baldur’s Gate. Both great games– betrayal took a while to set up but once we did, I became the traitor and summoned a bunch of gnolls. At which point I killed Joe and then Dave blew up the dimensional chains that ensorcelled my mind. So then we cleared the gnolls and we all won thanks to Joe’s sacrifice. It was outside this place that I ran into some cracked out bike rider. More on that later. Also look at Paul’s face in the gallery while he tries to think of a good descriptive color word.
Coheed & TBS @ McMenamins
Ok this is the reason for the whole post. This concert venue was kinda cool. I’ve never been to an outdoor venue before, and this felt kind of like being at a “Ren Fair for Hipsters”. And I don’t mean that in any pejorative way. It was just a bunch of regular concert goers wearing all black everything, renting lawn chairs and enjoying the show. I felt like the energy was a little weird but I also think it’s because we (fans) are all middle aged now, so like, people aren’t two-steppin’ or jumping up and down a lot anymore. I get scared I’m going to break something if I jump off a 3 foot drop lol, so I get it.
The show was really good. The opener was “Foxing” and they were interesting. Not bad, pretty chill, had some screamo kinda thing but interlaced with like, ambient guitar and some synth effects. It was fine. Not really my jam much anymore. Taking Back Sunday played a good show, some songs I knew some I didn’t. I listened to the whole setlist prior to the show so I knew a fair bit, but you kinda forget it. The singer was struggling a bit, but it’s been forever since those songs came out. Then he got all televangelist during the middle of the show and it was weird. I thought he was gonna invite me to hang out with Jesus. He didn’t end up talking about faith but it was definitely the undertone, and I think that probably has a lot to do with his own personal struggles that he was alluding to during a lot of the reminiscent talking he was doing. I respect it. Struggles are hard. (If you need any other facts, I’ll be here all day).
Coheed was awesome. They had a massive inflatable skeleton with pixel matrix screen eyes for stage decor they didn’t drop until a few songs in and it was super cool. We left our seats and moved closer for “A Favor House Atlantic” and the encore songs. I will say, I was really impressed with Claudio’s voice. It’s crazy to hit some of those notes and that dude has like, legit vision for the story he’s been telling these past 20 years. Really good show
Is it bigger than a Breadbox?
After that we played a game like 20 questions, but it’s not 20 questions, while waiting for the Uber driver to show up. Some dude was like, “I wanna play” but didn’t understand that we’re cursed and have infinite questions and it’s always something really stupid lol, so it was funny when he was like, “No, scratch that question, it doesn’t count, we already know it’s something natural” to some of us because he didn’t wanna waste questions. Not gonna lie, I actually thoroughly enjoy when strangers get excited and want to join in with whatever I’m doing.
In retrospect, that’s one reason to really love meth. It’s probably really great for the strangers you meet when they approach you and they’re high as fuck on uppers. They just wanna talk to you because you’re anyone, and they wanna tell you about everything that’s ever existed ever. Thankfully that only happened once and the dude almost crashed his bicycle into a tree immediately afterwards lol. But it was funny, and I genuinely like talking to people, whether they’re meth addicts or not. The guy came up to Cleve and I looking at our phones and was like, “Are you guys talking about what’s going in across the street?” And we’re like, “No, we’re looking at our phones” and then he goes off on this tangent about how he thinks it’s gonna be a strip club lol. It was harmless, and the kind of stuff I live for when I’m traveling haha, I really enjoy meeting weirdos.
After the Show
I’m pretty sure after the show we went… wait, did we just go straight to bed? I can’t really remember, this was 2 days ago at this point and this is why it’s important to write these things down everyday lol. We might have gone and played more board games but I’m pretty sure everyone was super beat because we’d been walking all day. Actually, I remember now: Dave and I went to a 24/7 diner which was past the goth club (The Coffin), then we were in the diner and there was someone having a birthday. The service was mid and the food was fine. Nothing to write home about but for sure would have liked it if I had drank like 6 beers that evening. Happier that I didn’t. I’ve got time to write about yesterday too now, so I’ll see you in the next post!
