Portland, does my love for you ever wane?
I love it when shift shuffling leaves me with an unexpected and sorely-needed day off!
yesssss.
in other news,
I spent last week in Portland, and let me just tell you that Portland, Oregon is truly the land of my little dreams. I will put up pics one day (new camera! yeah!) but highlights inluded:
- a performance with only three B:C:Clettes that we TOTALLY owned. We knocked the crowd dead. It was so amazing!
- seeing several fantastic Sprockettes performances
- loafing around and my friend Sauce's anarchist worker's collective bike shop. Seriously a fucking awesome shop. Wrenching and tinkering and generally helping out.
- biking over 100km on Thursday on multiple bike rides! a ginormous trek out to an agricultural island with a nekkid beach, through farmland, picking strawberries, etc. followed by a bike-powered pub crawl (oh! portland's beers!!) and final mad dashes to the Dead Babies Film Festival
- gigantic roaring bonfire basically downtown on the esplanade with no police intervention and a bottle of Glenfiddich
- cohosting (with the Sprockettes) a really rad workshop at an international conference and inspiring the possible formation a bicycle-inspired performance group in Central America. We talked about fun as a global movement for social change.
- Biking up Mt Tabor twice in 12 hours, once for a friend's wedding anniversary and then the next morning to find a friend's phone, which was actually in the care of another friend The day after biking well over 100kms.
- phone finding friend sending lewd text messages to everyone in portland with the missing phone. heh.
- in-depth discussion re: fast vs slow zombies over brunch with a friend
- drunken tricycle races at a dive bar with a smoke machine and gravelly-voiced announcer
- a bike ride that led us and a huge sound system around to have dance parties in a bunch of huge fountains
- waterfights with little kids
- meeting amazing new people from all over the place, especially Leah from NYC!
- all-you-can-eat vegan brunch at Sweet Pea Bakery
- AMAZING vegan cupcakes from the same place!
- connecting with people I've only really known as aquaintances
- staying for a week with Sauce, Carol, Turbo, Lee, Jen and Blake
- biking to Bellingham from Vancouver along beautiful rural roads
- getting smoking hot road rash all over my right shoulder, arm and leg during the Bellingham ride
- seeing a tall tandem tricycle tree art bike. It was AMAZING. Must post photos!
- Zoobomb Century ridiculousness. Who wants to bike 100 MILES on a child's bike? My friends do! Perhaps I'll compete next year :)
- delicious potato burritos. Oh man!
- Riding the train. Seriously, people, Amtrak is the new love of my travelling life. They just hung our bikes up in the baggage car, no hassle at ALL! And it was roomy and pleasant and we weren't on the highway and it was SO CHEAP and yeah, I love train travel.
- a chromed Bianchi racing tandem with Phil Wood hubs and a full Campagnolo drivetrain. Riding it to breakfast, as the stoker. Scary! Apparently I'm a good stoker (I don't automatically try to steer).
- people's souped-up racing minis. Oh, joy. Seeing a child's bike with a Brooks saddle made my life. So did seeing a tandem mini.
- ZOMBIE PUB CRAWL. attacking motorists and passing stagette parties dressed as a zombie. it was HILARIOUS.
- realizing every day and at every event how random, weird, creative, smart, subversive, and kind all of my friends are, here and elsewhere.
- being the only Canadian around for a few days and feeling totally welcomed and at home, like part of the crew.
Fucking hell, I am a part of an amazing community!
yesssss.
in other news,
I spent last week in Portland, and let me just tell you that Portland, Oregon is truly the land of my little dreams. I will put up pics one day (new camera! yeah!) but highlights inluded:
- a performance with only three B:C:Clettes that we TOTALLY owned. We knocked the crowd dead. It was so amazing!
- seeing several fantastic Sprockettes performances
- loafing around and my friend Sauce's anarchist worker's collective bike shop. Seriously a fucking awesome shop. Wrenching and tinkering and generally helping out.
- biking over 100km on Thursday on multiple bike rides! a ginormous trek out to an agricultural island with a nekkid beach, through farmland, picking strawberries, etc. followed by a bike-powered pub crawl (oh! portland's beers!!) and final mad dashes to the Dead Babies Film Festival
- gigantic roaring bonfire basically downtown on the esplanade with no police intervention and a bottle of Glenfiddich
- cohosting (with the Sprockettes) a really rad workshop at an international conference and inspiring the possible formation a bicycle-inspired performance group in Central America. We talked about fun as a global movement for social change.
- Biking up Mt Tabor twice in 12 hours, once for a friend's wedding anniversary and then the next morning to find a friend's phone, which was actually in the care of another friend The day after biking well over 100kms.
- phone finding friend sending lewd text messages to everyone in portland with the missing phone. heh.
- in-depth discussion re: fast vs slow zombies over brunch with a friend
- drunken tricycle races at a dive bar with a smoke machine and gravelly-voiced announcer
- a bike ride that led us and a huge sound system around to have dance parties in a bunch of huge fountains
- waterfights with little kids
- meeting amazing new people from all over the place, especially Leah from NYC!
- all-you-can-eat vegan brunch at Sweet Pea Bakery
- AMAZING vegan cupcakes from the same place!
- connecting with people I've only really known as aquaintances
- staying for a week with Sauce, Carol, Turbo, Lee, Jen and Blake
- biking to Bellingham from Vancouver along beautiful rural roads
- getting smoking hot road rash all over my right shoulder, arm and leg during the Bellingham ride
- seeing a tall tandem tricycle tree art bike. It was AMAZING. Must post photos!
- Zoobomb Century ridiculousness. Who wants to bike 100 MILES on a child's bike? My friends do! Perhaps I'll compete next year :)
- delicious potato burritos. Oh man!
- Riding the train. Seriously, people, Amtrak is the new love of my travelling life. They just hung our bikes up in the baggage car, no hassle at ALL! And it was roomy and pleasant and we weren't on the highway and it was SO CHEAP and yeah, I love train travel.
- a chromed Bianchi racing tandem with Phil Wood hubs and a full Campagnolo drivetrain. Riding it to breakfast, as the stoker. Scary! Apparently I'm a good stoker (I don't automatically try to steer).
- people's souped-up racing minis. Oh, joy. Seeing a child's bike with a Brooks saddle made my life. So did seeing a tandem mini.
- ZOMBIE PUB CRAWL. attacking motorists and passing stagette parties dressed as a zombie. it was HILARIOUS.
- realizing every day and at every event how random, weird, creative, smart, subversive, and kind all of my friends are, here and elsewhere.
- being the only Canadian around for a few days and feeling totally welcomed and at home, like part of the crew.
Fucking hell, I am a part of an amazing community!