This just in - Sharon Stone is batshizz crazy.

And I LOVE it!

No, not the part about how she wanted her 8-year-old son to have Botox injections to get rid of his stinky foot odor. Nooooo...it's more the fact that she's so entirely warped by her C-list celebrity status that she actually thinks she can dictate the terms of her own custody agreement.

I just love the quote from the article link above: she's "simply refused" to participate in counseling unless her "schedule is accommodated and her demands are met." Hmmm...now that's just a novel idea right there, Sharon...a performance rider for parenting. You know, if I could develop such a thing, there's a few things right off the top of my head that I'd FOR SURE include:

- I'd delegate diaper changes and midnight feedings to an assistant.

- I'd assign a minion to cheer on my offspring at early morning soccer games.

- No cookie sales, no wrapping paper sales, no magazine sales. EVER.

- I'd get to call in to work for a "sick kid" one Friday a month - regardless of the health status of my lil' one.

And my kid foot odor solution? Biweekly pedicures for the whole family!

Odwiedzanie Polskiego Festiwalu!

Or for those of you unfamiliar with the language...Visiting the Polish Festival.

Every year on the last weekend in September, something strange happens. The air is charged with electricity, the sun shines a little brighter, and the Portland-based members of my family are inexplicably drawn to North Interstate Avenue. For that is where the St. Stanislaus Catholic Church is located. And more importantly, where the Polish Festival is held every year.

But most - MOST - important of all...we all wonder whether this is the year that Uncle Len will finally break down and buy himself a krakowiak cap like the one shown below. He gives it serious consideration every year, but thus far - no dice. And I can't even tell you how excited I'll be when the day finally comes. 'Til then, we'll content ourselves with eating our yearly allowance of pierogie, kielbasa and golabki. It's a hard life.

Aunt Deb found a bunch of bitchin' buttons in one of the booths...

They're totally jealous that they aren't Polish. You can tell by the look in their eyes.

Brother-in-law Alex also got to sport a "I Love My Polish Wife" pin.

My favorite part of Polish Festival - it's Placki Time! Note that the sign reads "Potatoe Pancakes." Oh yes, those are my people.

And in summary...

See, I totally got picketed...

Wasn't lyin'...I really did get picketed last week. There were around 10 people total doing a loop in front of my building, but this guy was my favorite. The flag is a nice touch, don't you think?

Am an amazing urban farmer and salsa maker.

Ohhhh, mmmmmmmm...

In order to celebrate pally-o Sharon's first day with a (almost) real person work schedule (10-7, not 12-9 anymore!) we had ourselves a little Mexican fiesta-type situation over here tonight. Jay grilled some chicken for tacos and charred up some veggies for my salsa-makin' endeavor of the eve.

For the first time, this summer I tried my hand at growing some tomaters on the back patio. I figured I couldn't let that southern exposure go to waste, and I do love me some fresh picked tomaters. The romas haven't been too impressive, but the grape tomatoes are dee-lish! After a slow start, the romas are starting to produce and the grapes are still going gangbusters (Jealous, Mrs. Prince-Starr? I know you are...) And I'm a huge fan of picking tomatoes each morning for my salad, so that's not been bad at all.

Tonight's salsa mixology consisted of grilled romas, jalapenos, and red onions along with some garlic and fresh-squeezed orange and lime juice. Not quite as spicy as I typically like, but still full of flavor despite the lack of cilantro that Jay insists upon. Who doesn't like cilantro?! It's insanity.

Apologies in Advance

I hate to belabor the fact that I'm sleep deprived and 14 kinds of cranky, but you know...I AM.

Today, however, something very sweet happened. And I apologize in advance for the lack of snark in this particular post. I'll come up with something spectacular for you this weekend, promise.

Anyhoots. I e-mailed my friend Melissa some happy birthday wishes for her son Ryan, who turned four years old today. She replied back with this:

Guess who I thought of first thing this morning? Don't cry now......Riley. Because every time I think of today, I think of you guys and how much you were there for us. And Lucky Lab Dog Wash. And how happy you made Molly. And Riley. 'Cause I miss him. Okay, STOP CRYING !!!

To explain, Riley was our first doggle. Jay and I got him from a farm out in Eagle Creek, Oregon when he was 12 weeks old and one of three remaining pups from a litter of 10 labrador puppies. At the time, I was completely set on getting a Westie (insanity! thank goodness I was convinced otherwise!) When we rolled up, the dog that would become Riley was sitting quietly next to the farmer and he was so freakin' big - I thought he was the MOMMA.

Riley was our baby boy - we took him everywhere with us. And one of our most favoritest memories was taking him to the annual Dove Lewis/Lucky Lab Dogtoberfest Dog Wash. Four years ago today, on Dogtoberfest weekend, I got a call from our next door neighbor and friend, Melissa - she very calmly told me that she and her husband were heading to the hospital to become parents [I'm pretty sure this means they were meeting the stork there, but what do I know? I get my babies from animal rescue organizations].

She asked if we could look in on their dog Molly later in the day, because she wasn't sure how long the whole birthin' thing was going to take. No problemo, I said - and off we went to Dogtoberfest. Jay, Riley, Molly and I had a fantabulous time. The doggles got baths and we got pints o' beer on a perfect late September day.

Later that night, we headed over to the hospital to meet the new baby, Ryan. As Melissa says at least once a year - we were Ryan's very first visitors. It's kinda sweet, but also kinda funny in the way that your parents' friends are funny when they say "Oh, you're so big! I remember you when you were just THIS TALL!" and they point at somewhere right around knee-level. But truly, I'm honored to be a part of their family tapestry, even in that relatively small way.

What I really remember about that night are two things: 1) Melissa's nurse, the one regularly checking her hoo-ha every so often, was the younger sister of my first high school boyfriend; and 2) Melissa [who is soooo going to kill me for saying this] put away a RIDICULOUS amount of food during our short visit.

I'm not joking, people. Apparently, hospitals let new moms go on some kind of freakin' caloric free-for-all after foisting a child from their loins. I'm pretty sure I counted a big ol' burger, a caesar salad, some fries, some ice cream, a milkshake and possibly even another milkshake in the mix. It was some insane hoover-like action right there.


Sadly, we lost Riley the following spring to leukemia. He was just a little over three years old at the time. He was a giant labradork freaktriever and despite his long, lean 110-pound frame, when excited he would bounce straight up in the air, all four paws an equal distance from the floor.

He was a character, that Riley. And I wish you'd all have had a chance to meet him and play with his velvety-soft flop ears - just once.

Riley

2002 - 2005

Playin' in the snow with his momma

Playin' in the water, diggin' in the sand on Whidbey Island

Catchin' some zzz's in his car doggle-hammock.

I'm a pretty big deal, after all...

Holy shiznit. I. Am. Overtired, y'alls.

I didn't get nearly enough sleep last night, and that may have directly affected what occurred once I returned home from work tonight.

After picking up the very finest in frozen lasagne and 1.5 liter wine at Hank's Thiftway, I cruised home for a nice chilled out evening with mah mans. As he fired up the gourmet microwave for our manna from heaven, I headed upstairs to change out of my school clothes. Dunno quite what came over me, but I decided to go ahead and customize myself a little t-shirt for the evenin'.

I rolled down to the room that is great a little bit later, sportin' some snazzy pajama pants and one sweet t-shirt. I'd decided to give it the full-on Flashdance treatment - cut the neck off, cut the sleeves down and trimmed a few inches from the bottom of the shirt. I then went ahead and used one of the sleeves to fashion myself a pimpin' headband - then rolled back downstairs to model the new gear to mah mans.

Now, you might be wondering why the photos of this sweet deal I was sportin' aren't on this here website - and the answer is because IT WAS NOT PRETTY.

Good lordypants. Jay took one look at me, and was all "What the hell? Nice freakin' headband, hipster nightmare."

I just gave him a big ol' grin and replied "I Ed Hardy'd* this shizz! WOOT WOOT!"

Look, I do what I like - I'm kind of a big deal, after all...

*The Ed Hardy treatment (for those of you unfamiliar with Rock of Love II - Audrina not included):

Today: Pretty much everything that could go wrong? DID.

What a craptastic day.

You know those days when just one thing after another is piled on you? And it happens so quickly that you can barely blink? I had one of those days today.

- The bagel I grabbed for breakfast? Didn't get a chance to eat it 'til noon.

- The lunch sandwich I picked up at noon? Ate half at 5:30 pm, the rest at 11:00 pm.

- The project I've been working on for five months? Inspired people to picket outside my building today. And required me to talk on the radio. And is going to make my life hellish for the next five weeks.

- And in related news, I'm pretty sure I've aggravated an existing coccyx injury. Feel my pain. DO IT!!!

Ugggh. I didn't get home from work until 11:30 and it's taken 'til now to chill the hell out enough to even consider sleep. However, I did receive the sweetest e-mail from my pally-o Kates today that she reads my miscellaneous updates every morning, and is sadly disappointed for the rest of the day when there's nothing new. Isn't she the preshy presherton?!

So, for you, Miz L'Bujf - I shall blog under even the shizziest conditions. Unfortch, with your e-mail subscription, this post-midnight update might not hit your inbox til Thursday morning. For that, I apologize in advance. Will endeavor to do better in future.

Now then. Anyone got a wee donut pillow for my coccyx sitchyashun?

General Monday weirdness update.

Just a couple things...

1) Went to see a new chiropractor today. My other one moved to the GeeDee Pearl District a few months back. No offense to the Pearl, but it's just a real long haul to get there, and I pretty much have a panic attack before each visit because I am inevitably running behind schedule. It's just that I have an allergy to accurately estimating my travel time between the western suburbs and downtown Portland.

2) New chiropractor had some really good ideas for kickin' the azzes of the migraines I've been getting on a regular basis since April. There was a suggestion regarding the use of a pillow for my wee noggin that has a hole in the center. And apparently, I've got one leg that is slightly shorter than the other. Now, this isn't actually news to me - I've known for a while that there was a teeny difference due to a weird soccer injury in 11th grade. However, the difference has apparently grown larger over time. I'm now feeling like a bit of a freak. A freak with a bitty little lift in her left shoe. Does this mean I'm bionic? Fair warning: no teasing or you'll get a taste of my suspiciously sharp elbows.

3) I brought a 3-inch binder of worky work stuff home to read before tomorrow - not because I had to, and not because I'm behind or anything, but because I'm a highly motivated self-starter that gets creepily obsessed with knowing every facet of my given projects...before any one else.

4) And unfortch, that binder is sitting all on it's lonesome whilst I enjoy a delish pinot grigio and kill time posting nonsense to friend's pages on Facebook. Oh yeah, I'm also being highly entertained by Jay shouting at the characters on CSI:Miami as the drama plays out on TV. Jebus, baby - you know it's not real right?

Emmy Fashion: My Picks and Pans

Well now.

There were some interesting things happening fashion-wise at the Emmys tonight. I was surprised about a few things - the fact that last year's one-shoulder gowns are still in, the number of big-azz bows tacked onto the front of dresses, and the remarkable lack of effort taken with some of the hair styles. I mean, c'mon people - it's the Emmys! Put a little elbow grease into it! Or at least a little spray gel or sumpin'! And while I'm squawkin' about the hair, might I just express my total lack of support for the marcel curls that people seem to like rockin' these days? Hate 'em, just hate 'em. I'm lookin' at you America Ferrera...

I tried switching back and forth between both the E! and TV Guide red carpet shows, but I was quickly reminded how much I despise Lisa Rinna, so I re-dedicated myself to Mr. Ryan Seacrest. Seriously - could Lisa have uttered the phrase "boob sweat" any more? Disgusting! Girlfriend needs a little remedial course in how to avoid sharing too much information.

The chicas from Desperate Housewives were a real mixed bag, in my opinion. I loved Dana Delaney's dress (vintage! sparkly!), but I thought Marcia Cross looked like she'd be dancing in Swan Lake after the show (just needed her toe shoes!) I loved the yellow on Teri Hatcher, but all those ruffles seemed a little Prom '87 to me. Hated Eva Longoria's dress (that bow! boo!) but she got points for those gorgeous stems of hers. And the dresses worn by Felicity Huffman and Nicolette Sheridan? GORGEOUS!

America Ferrera - loved the jewelry, loved the shoes, but hated the fussy, too-long skirt and that hair. Bad hair!

Hayden Panettiere - great hair, great dress (particularly the detail on the back), but she could have gotten away with something much more fun. I would have loved to see this dress on someone like Marcia Cross or Kate Walsh.

Heidi Klum - egads. What's going on here? Is she a matador? Is this one of those new blankets you use when you're breastfeeding in public? What?

Julia Louis-Dreyfus - I have a feeling this dress might not get rave reviews, but I thought it was just lovely. There was this whole futuristic feel to the bodice that made me think of that movie The Fifth Element. The dress fit her perfectly, had just the most amazing drape and was a fantastic color for her.

Jay was quite taken with Christina Hendricks from Mad Men. I loved her as Saffron in the show Firefly back in the day. I'm pretty sure his fascination with Miz Hendricks had less to do with the cut or color of her dress, and everything to do with her GINORMOUS TA-TAs! Lordy, lordy...we were both wondering how that broad stayed upright...

Fondue Night!

The Cookies 'n Cream Marshmallow Dream chocolate fondue got two thumbs up from us. Dee-lish!

Pretty Pretty Pollution

We've had some weird weather days lately...the weather's turned a bit cooler, and there's been a lot of haze in the air. I've heard it may be related to forest fires happenin' elsewhere, so that's not a super dooper deal - but it has resulted in some pretty interesting skyscapes at either end of the day.

Sunrise:



Sunset:

I am officially the thorn...

...in the side of my homeowners association. Seriously. If I were one of our board members, I would hate me.

I played the role of contrarian last night and pretty much offered up my devil's advocate perspective at every opportunity. Given the fact that for the first hour of the meeting it was just the three board members and me, I felt free to flout Robert's Rules of Order. Normally, I try to respect structure and order in a public meeting, but these people needed educatin' and I figured I was just the chickadee to do the teachin'.

A few examples from my campaign of personal jackassery...

- When the board president mentioned having the architectural review committee take a survey (and photos!) of the neighborhood to determine whether people have constructed gazebos, decks and the like without HOA approval, I was quick to point out that there were these crazy laws about trespassing and that the whole idea "seemed a little Big Brother-ish to me."

- Another board member repeatedly referred to a "childrens park" in our neighborhood until I piped up, gently placed my hand on her arm and said "Are you talking about the park in the center of the neighborhood? Maybe you could refer to it as THE PARK so as not to exclude those of us without children. We like the park too." (ZOMG! I'm such a beeyotch, huh?)

- Our treasurer wanted the HOA to pay for 5mph speed limit signs to install in the alley behind his house in order to discourage cut-through traffic that's using it as a dragstrip. When one of the other board members pointed out that in order to enforce such a sign, the HOA would have to get an agreement from our local police department, I scoffed. I told the people gathered around the table that they were crazy to think that a cop was going to sit at the end of our wee alley radar-gunning drivers. "Oh yes they will!" the others claimed, "If enough of us complain about it!" At that comment, I sat back in my chair, crossed my arms and said "That is a ridiculous use of law enforcement resources. Don't cops have better things to do than patrol our private streets? Jesus - is this Mayberry or something?"

Okay, so I might be a giant, festering thorn in the side of my HOA, but I've got something to say in my defense -

At least I'm willing to be part of the solution.

And to that end, I've supplemented my architectural review membership with roles on the budget task force and as an editor of the neighborhood newsletter.

I'm takin' over, betches. And if you know anything about me, you'll kindly step outta my way.

Little Miss Crankypants Spouts Off.

We've now reached the point in the show where I GO THE HELL OFF.

Oh, I'm hot, dear readers - HOT!! And more than a little bothered by a recent turn of events.

You see, I'm currently rockin' a real love/hate relationship with Facebook. For a few years now, I've limited my social networking to MySpace, mainly because some of my friends are not the greatest at communicating through other methods, and MySpace worked pretty well for us.

But recently, my little brother made the proclamation that "MySpace sucks, Facebook's where it's at." And I don't know about you all, but I choose to follow that particular 22-year-old arbiter of cool when making important decisions as to how to keep track of my friends and countrymen.

Which brings me to my rant of today. Yesterday, one of my friends commented on a status update that was posted on my Facebook page. I don't want to overwhelm y'alls with techno-speak, but here's a quick note to remember - these Facebook status updates are actually generated by posts I make to Twitter, a cool little communication tool that I can use from my web-enabled, personal cell phone. Whenever I get a hankerin' to share one of the many ridiculous things that happens to me each day, I can easily pull my phone out, ticky-type a quick note, and the post will update in three places simultaneously: my Twitter page, my Facebook page and this here bloggity blog.

So...yesterday during my lunch break, I posted a little tweet about listening to some tracks from the new Kings of Leon album. About an hour later, I received an e-mail (also on my personal cell phone, for those of you keeping track) that someone had commented on that particular status update. And the comment, which I am willing to accept was meant in a non-malicious way, insinuated that I was misappropriating my employer's resources. And oh yeah, he went ahead and explicitly named my employer in that post.

And the thing is, when this particular friend (let's call him Jackalope) first tracked me down on Facebook, he noted that I was signed up under my maiden name rather than my married name. When he questioned why, I responded that it was important to me to keep my personal and professional life separate. Do you see any ambiguity in that statement? No, I didn't think so.

So I'm really bothered by this whole situation. I'm bothered because despite going to work every day and working my tail off, somebody's off-the-cuff comment calling me a slacker was posted for all my lil' Facebook friends to see. Look, we're not in college here, Jack. You're not accusing me of goofing off on my job as a sandwich artist at Subway. We're both salaried (or at least I am - I don't really concern myself with your work sitchy 'cause it's not my business) employees with relatively important jobs and calling somebody out like you did yesterday is a really crap thing to do.

I'm trying not to get too worked up about it, though I did manage to delete Jack from my friends list in an effort to keep my employment information out of the Facebook universe yesterday. I think what bugs me most of all is that I made a specific reference to wanting to preserve what little innerweb anonymity I could, and Jack totally disregarded that preference.

I dunno, maybe I'm being unrealistic. Maybe I just need to accept the fact that if I'm putting my thoughts out there into the electronic stream, that I have to deal with the consequences. If that's the case, perhaps it would be easier to pack it in and stop sharing top quality awesome things like my husband's self-inflicted scalping and tales of my tippyoverish tendencies.

But you'd miss those, wouldn't you? The ego in my pocket likes to think you would...

The End is Near, Betches.

A little after 9:30 tonight, Sharon sent me a text telling me to look at the moon. I toddled on out to the street in front of my house, and lo and behold! There was a big ol' blood red moon.

I yelled up to Jay to come check it out, and he immediately started in with the various Doomsday-End Days-Apocalypse theories he always brings up in an effort to freak me out. I wasn't raised with any of that biznizz, so I find it all a bit creepy. And I think I've already made my thoughts clear regarding that whole "Rapture" sitchy, haven't I?

Anyway, I immediately shot back at him that it clearly wasn't the end of the world, because wouldn't frogs be raining from the sky if that was the case?! I, of course, only knew that particular fact based on my viewing of the trailer for The Reaping.

As we headed back into the house, what did we spy on the windowsill behind the potted plant on our porch?

A FROG.

Holy crap. The end may in fact be near. If you try to reach me in the next few days, I might be busy stocking my pantry and buying a shotgun. Just sayin'.

That's just wrong.

The primary mission of Such Ridiculosity is, of course, to document my own personal jackassery. But sometimes, something so very, very ridiculous crosses my path AND IT CANNOT BE IGNORED.

Today at the local farmers market, I spied this amazingly unmatchy-matchy outfit:

Of course, it's not of the best possible quality (surreptitious photography not exactly being my best talent - though I am usually damn good). But, gentle blog readers, what we are seeing here is an outfit with one helluva split personality.

The bottom half of the situation was very much let's go to the gym - white socks and tennie-runners and black shorts with white stripes down the sides. Not bad, right? Yeah, if they were paired with a t-shirt or something. But that wasn't the case here. Oh no.

From the waist up, this honey looked like she was sittin' down for the 8 pm dinner service on a Carnival Cruise Ship. The black top had spangles, people. SPANGLES. You can't so much tell from the photo, but when she was out in full sun, chica was glittering.

It was simply too much. Too. Much.

9 to 5 Movie Night!

How much do I love movie theme nights?

SO MUCH!

Capitalizing on the success of our Ghostbusters movie night during the Flix on the Brix series at Pioneer Courthouse Square, we decided to plan another movie theme night.

Our selection? 9 to 5 with Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton and Jane Fonda. It was fantastic! We had loads of cocktails, BBQ ribs right off the grill, and lil' dill pickles - all items featured in the flick.

And after watching the movie, we dug into a "Happy Birthday Mr. Hart" cake (Dabney Coleman played the role of Franklin Hart, the horrific bossman in the movie). It was delicioso!

Mah mans.

Jealous?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

Unless, of course, you're into skinheads or dudes that look like Chester Molester. I swear to jebus, that nastyazz mustachio better be gone with a quickness. And lordy, let's hope the recent self-inflicted scalping is soon a distant memory and his wee noggin is reforested in short order.

Massive Zorb Fail

A while back, Boise BFF Jon alerted me to something called The Zorb. A friend of his went Zorbing in New Zealand or some place on the other side of the world and it looked...A-FREAKIN-MAZING. All I know is that before I die, I will be going Zorbing. Oh yes, I will.

Fortunately, the kinda thing you see in the video below from FailBlog won't happen to me, 'cause I've been workin' real hard on my spatial awareness and shizz...

My new innerweb addiction.

Right. So.

I've got my ticket to the Kings of Leon show next month, and as of late I've developed an unholy fascination with all things Followill.

You see, the Followill Brothers (Caleb, Jared and my imaginary boyfriend, Nathan) and their cousin Matthew have been putting up home movies on the Kings of Leon website. One new video is posted a day, from September 1st up through the 23rd, when the new KOL album is released.

And I am thoroughly addicted.

The videos are jam-packed with awesome. There's sibling smacktalk, ambushes, pranks, behind-the-scenes tomfoolery, bong hits, wasabi-snorting and some of the most adorable Oklahoman accents ever recorded.

A few of my favorite quotes:

Jared on a chicken-eatin' scene from the Sex on Fire video:
Matthew was a packet of honey mustard away from his favorite day ever.

Nathan on Caleb's lyrics for Sex on Fire:
I don’t know really where Caleb got the lyrics for that one, ‘cause I’m pretty sure he’s savin’ himself for marriage. So I would prolly say it’s more a song, a fantasy - like how he imagines it will go. But he’s onto something, ‘cause it’s only a minute and a half song and he apologizes at the end.

And then there was a quote on the site of something I could totally relate to, as I've often been thrilled to discover some truly amazing blog posts I've written after a 24-hour bender [I kid, SRSLY, I kid!]:

"Caleb had written most of the lyrics and melodies for Only By The Night during some downtime at home recovering from shoulder surgery. "I think the pain pills inspired him a little more than he realized," Nathan says with a laugh. "He would play us a song and we'd say, 'When did you write that?' and he'd say, 'I don't really remember writing it. I just woke up with an empty bottle of wine and my songbook open and these words written down.'" Says Caleb: "Those pills can make you feel so nice. I think a lot of the pretty melodies came from that and from me just opening more."

Followills, I luuuurrrvve you.

Don't mind me, I'm just having a mild panic attack.

Note to self: watching bugs in high def is a terrifying TV experience.

Yeah, that right there looks like a bit of a whoopsie.

Somebunny forgot to put the blade guard on his clippers...

Drug the baby! Momma needs some downtime!

Very Short List directed me over to Weirdomatic today to check out these freakin' sweet old-school ads:

"Babychile, Momma's gotta get some bloggin' done - wont'cha just take this spiked bottle and go lay down for a while?"

The day I start solving my marital troubles by delousing myself with Lysol is the day I consult an attorney...

I hate it when old people get all stabby and blunt force trauma-ey...

OMG - am I on acid? Did I take too many Vicodin?

ARE THESE PEOPLE MADE OF RIBBONS?

MFMFNW Update #3: The Motherlovin' Conclusion

We survived. Sharon and I made it through the final shows of MFMFNW 2008 a little older, a little wiser, and with nary a battle scar between us.

Weekend Tally

Wristband - $50

[bullsh*t] Convenience charge - $8.25

# of bands seen - 12

# of bands enjoyed - 10

# of venues visited - 6

# of mandannas scorned - countless

Our first stop of the night was at Dante's for the F*cking Eagles show. They were loud, had one tambourinist too many, and a drummer with a head on a swivel.

And begging your pardon, but when you see your sister's name plastered all over the toilie seat cover dispenser in a skanky club, you've got to take a picture. You've just gotta.

On the way from Dante's to the Fez Ballroom for The Slants show, we encountered this robot fella walking the streets of P-town. It's quirky, this town o' mine.

WOOT WOOT! After the Fez, we hit the Crystal Ballroom for Menomena and The Helio Sequence shows.

The line outside was crazy ridiculous, so we decided to scootch on into Ringlers for a late night snack first. Following a delightful cheeseburger and tots meal, we rolled out and joined the line. Where we saw these - manpris. Two guys, standing together in the line, both wearing manpris. The thing is, rockin' dude capris isn't exactly a mainstream thing just yet, and I found it a lil' odd that both fellas were doing it. Back in my day, if one of my friends was wearing her jellies, I wore my saltwater sandals. It's called not stealing somebody's thunder, boys. I'm just sayin'.

A Brief Interlude: John Butler Trio at Edgefield

We kicked off the final night of MFMFNW, not with a show at one of the event venues, but out yonder in Troutdale at Edgefield. We bought tickets months ago for the John Butler Trio show before contemplating the fantabulousness of MFMFNW, so we did our best to combine our efforts on Saturday night to create the perfect music weekend. And I think we did it for sheezy.



4:05 pm - Sharon arrives to pick me up for the 3-year-long drive to Troutdale.


4:15 pm - After dilly-dallyin' about packing up my concert survival kit (sand chair, sweatshirt, blanket, magazines for before the show starts and a container with 3 shots of rum - don't you judge me) we're finally ready to go.


4:25 pm - I talk Sharon into swinging through the Sonic for two large lo-cal cranberry limeades. I promptly take a few swigs of mine, then add the 3 shots of rum. For that is how I roll.


5:15 pm - Arrive at Edgefield, park and roll out to the Concerts on the Lawn gate.


5:17 pm - Argue with the jackass security guard that tells me my chair's too high and I won't be able to bring it in.


5:18 pm - Calmly explain that I'd used the exact same chair two months earlier and it wasn't a problem then.


5:19 pm - We're in! And with chairs!


5:30 pm - Aaahhhh. Sitting in the sun, toesies in the grass, ice cold McMenamins beer in hand. Perfect.


5:35 pm - A girl rolls in wearing what appear to be two bandannas held together with string. As a shirt. We mock her. This is what we do.




5:45 pm - Read LHJ article to see If That Marriage Can Be Saved. (note: the answer is always yes - which makes me wonder why divorce rates are so freakin' high)


5:55 pm - Spill half of ice cold beer on seat of sand chair while getting up incredibly gracelessly to visit Port-o-Let Village. Sharon restrains herself from laughing at me. I love her for it.


6:00 pm - Tristan Prettyman takes the stage. She's wearing a red dress and has a pure and lovely voice.





7:00 pm - ZOMG! ZOMG! It's John Butler! And he's cut all of his dreads off! I so prefer him without them!

7:05 pm - Uggghhh...girlie's got a lotta, lotta dreads. Me no likely.

7:15 pm - John Butler is singing through his guitar. I'm confused, but in a good way.





7:25 pm - I am with my peoples, shakin' my groove thing and singing along with the JBT and the rest of the audience while the sun shines and planes fly by overhead. All is right in the world.




8:25 pm - JBT wraps up the show with all three fellas bangin' away on the drums. A fantastic ending to an awesome night!

MFMFNW Update #2: TVOTR rocked my face.

We kicked off Day 3 of MFMFNW at the Wonder Ballroom for the 5:30 pm Britt Daniel show. The place was packed, so very packed. It was an all-ages show and the line upstairs to the balcony bar looked like a real pain in the tuchus, so we skipped the bevvies and hung out in the back of the theatah near the amped-up meth head sound man. Damn, was there some nervous energy coming off of that one.

Britt played guitar and sang all on his ownsome for the first few songs, then incorporated a weird little drum machine that Sharon found quite off-putting. About midway through his set, he was joined by a drummer chick and they played a bunch of his Spoon songs and some new solo works. 'Twas a lovely show. We were starving and parched, so we skipped the next band, Built to Spill and headed downtown to grab some chow before the doors opened at the Roseland.

We managed to score a spot right in front of the Roseland, and walked over to grab some Chinese food before the show. And can I just say? I'm pretty sure I've now had the worst Chinese food that Portland has to offer. Egads - that shizz was almost inedible. Fortunately, I was able to choke it down due to my extreme starvation-type sitchy-a-shun. Fun Fact: On our way back to the Roseland after dinner, this woman walking slightly unsteadily towards us offered the following words of caution - "Careful girls, there's a lot of heroin addicts around here, and one just tried to take my purse." Just keep that in mind, Portland peeps - there's a lot of heroin addicts downtown. No dilly-dallying if you know what's good for you. Walk with a purpose, my daddy always told me.

Upon entering the venue, Sharon and I made a beeline to the balcony, where we could enjoy adult beverages and actual seating other than that provided by the floor. And then we proceeded to critique the concert wear of those milling about below us. Sharon and I agreed on two things - there were entirely too many mandannas (men wearing bandannas around their noggins) and look-at-me, look-at-me, I'm a cyclist types.

I'm just sayin', it's great that you're riding your bike downtown for the show and that you had the foresight to roll up your right pant leg so it wouldn't get mucked up by your chain, but seriously? Once you've committed yourself to being off the bike for a few hours - roll your damn pant leg back down. And the flashing red light clipped to your back pocket? Turn it off when you come to the rock show. There's enough seizure-inducing activity here already - we don't need your assistance.

The first set of the night was played by Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson and friends. Despite that ridiculous mouthful of a name, I enjoyed his music. I did think he spent entirely too much time noodlin' about on the stage, however. He played three different guitars during his 40 minutes onstage and apparently, each one had to be tuned right there and then. Annoying. Look fella, you're the opener on a three-band ticket - you should show up ready to play. I'll tolerate such activities from a big name joint like U2 or you know, Def Leppard, or something, but don't test my patience.

It was during this set that I realized that we'd managed to seat ourselves in two of four seats in the entire venue that are located directly beneath an A/C duct. I once thought there wasn't any such thing as too much A/C at a rock show, but I've now been proven wrong. We were sitting in damn near arctic conditions, y'all. Our discussion on the situation went a little like this:

Me: F*ck me, it's cold!

Sharon: I know, right? I think I'm getting hypothermia.

Me: Well, maybe when more people fill up the joint, we'll be glad for the cool air.

30 minutes later

Me: F*CK ME! I'm freezing to death!

S: Whaddaya want to do about it? Find another seat?

Me: [surveying the rapidly-dwindling number of vacant seats around us] Screw it. I can manage. I'm tougher than the cold.

S: Okay then.

10 minutes later

Me: Dammit! I'm not tougher than the cold after all. I'm gonna go buy a TVOTR sweatshirt.

S: Have fun.

25 minutes later

[Two chicks sit huddled together, attempting to share one men's large hoodie sweatshirt. It is not going well.]

S: You're a good friend for sharing your sweatshirt.

Me: I'm a giver, Sharon, what can I say?

15 minutes later

Me: Yeah, I don't think I'm going to be able to share for much longer. I'm getting frostbite.

S: No problem. [shivers involuntarily, then begins rubbing her bare arms vigorously.]

OMG, I'm a horrible person. Sidenote: the sweatshirt was super warm and comfy.

The second band of the night was Jaguar Love. All four members of the band wore skinny white jeans. Jaguar Love unleashed an unholy sonic assault on my eardrums, but the people sitting around us seemed quite taken with the band's efforts. Sharon said the singing sounded like a crying baby. My opinion? That was one hot mess, and I couldn't wait for it to end. But maybe I just had some lingering hypothermia-induced rage. It's tough to say.

And finally, at 11:30 pm, TV on the Radio took the stage:

And I? LOVED IT.

TVOTR typically includes a lot of crazy sound manipulation and computery stuff in their studio recordings, and I was curious how that would translate to their live show. I needn't have worried. I've now heard one of their songs arranged four different ways, and each one knocks my ever-lovin' socks off. The show was wicked loud, and I've made a mental note to be sure to bring earplugs the next time I see them. TVOTR played two songs from their new album, which comes out on September 23rd. And all I have to say about that is oh hellsyeah.

MFMFNW Update #1

Despite being eye-to-armpit with the majority of people at Berbati's Pan last night, I managed to enjoy myself quite muchly. And I learned two important things:

1) It's every woman for herself when massive crowds threaten to obscure your view of the stage, and

2) Standing for five hours in ballet flats with zero arch support will make you a hobbly mess the day after the show.


But whatevs, right? Sharon and I had a freakin' sweet time at MFMFNW last night.

We arrived downtown at Berbati's around 8:30, just a little bit before the first band of the night took the stage. For a nice stretch of time, we were totally entertained by the people-watchin' all around us. I had a nice view of this lil' hippie chick for the first half of the night. She started off the show wearing a hat that appeared to be made of the scalped head of a teddy bear. This ridiculous hat had ears and long fuzzy flaps down both sides of her face. And the damn thing was completely out of place on an early September evening. Given the fact that it was approximately eleventy million degrees in Berbati's, I just wanted to smack her on principle. And when she finally shed that stupid chapeau to reveal her dread-tails, I had a tough time restraining myself.

Girl with stupid hair - there were also legwarmers on display. Unacceptable.

The first band of the night, The 1900s, was super fun. But I really wondered how seven people were able to fit up on that teeny stage. The female vocalist's voice and use of various percussive instruments (more cowbell!) completely won me over.


When the next band, Norfolk & Western, rolled around, a guy just a few inches taller than me decided to totally block my view with his giant fuzzy redheaded melon. I was not down with that at all. Fortunately, he made up for obscuring the show with his orange-on-a-toothpick head a little later in the night. I wasn't too bummed about that turn of events because I was bored out of my skull by this band.

Giant fuzzy noggin. Unacceptable.

The next band was Langhorne Slim, which I insisted upon calling Foghorn Leghorn because I like that name better. They were easily the biggest draw of the night, and things got a little crazy during Foghorn's set. This deranged Billy Zane-lookalike with stupid grommet earlobes crowded his way up to the stage in front of us and proceeded to go apeshizz crazy. He and his girlfriend were slamming into each other, slamming into all of us around them, and when people pushed back, he got nasty and confrontational. Security came in at one point and looked prepared to drag him out, but he talked his way into staying. During one particularly raucous song, the girl standing to my right took an elbow to the face. Like I always say, It's always fun 'til someone loses an eye. Stupid freakin' moshers. Fortunately, Giant Fuzzy Noggin came to the rescue by blocking these same idiot moshers from banging into me. Small favors, I guess.


And then we were onto the main event - the Old 97's. I weaseled my way right up to the edge of the stage while Sharon allowed herself to get bullied towards the back by a very mannish-looking woman. I know I should have been more concerned about the impending girl-on-girl attack, but, jeez louise - it's the Old 97's! A girl's gotta have her priorities...

Rhett Miller. Meeeowww. Quite acceptable.

My prime viewing position was right in front of the lead guitarist's monitor, which was so very handy as it provided something to balance against as I took turns standing on one very painful footsie at a time. Along with the chick standing next to me, I spent a lot of the set staring googley-eyed at Rhett, which seemed to bug Mr. Lead Guitar. He got real passive-aggressive with us every few songs and would stride forward aggressively, standing right above us. At one point, he almost stepped on the neighbor chick's hand, and at various points, his junk was just a foot above our heads. Great jebus, fella - mission accomplished, okay? You now have our attention.

Look at me! Look at me! Look how fast my fingers go!

But c'mon, when you have this gorgeousness just few feet away from you, what can you do besides gaze adoringly?

Two songs from the end of the show, at about a quarter past 1, I made my way to the back of the venue to find Sharon. She'd found an empty chair and was cooling her own ballet flat-clad heels. Just before we left, we were treated to the sight of a ridiculous headband (really a head-string) wearing hipster makin' out with his ladyfriend in the back of the club. Uggghhhh. It wasn't nearly as bad as a similar PDA scene described by local blogger Meagan K, but it was bad enough. And jebus - that headstring...just terrible.

Hipster + headstring = Dooshbally-o Numero Uno