Chance - the dog from Homeward Bound

another fat one:

well, since we last spoke i've learned a bit more about how to get around the city. i've found some thrift stores, gone to a few cool book and music stores, gone skateboarding with dan and molly under the freeway, and gone to a couple of shows.

i went w/ molly and dan - who are from flagstaff - to a house show last friday. the house was/is called "the pink house." it was nighttime when i went there, but i think that the house probably was actually pink in color. it is kind of near where i live, only like a mile away probably. a really sweet metal band called Manias played, among others. they were from albuquerque, NM. i saw one of my roommies, jason, there too.

then, the next day, the weirdest thing happened when i went to downtown...

the band "lightning bolt" was playing at a venue (satyricon). so i went down to downtown with my roommate jason; we took the MAX, which is like the trains in chicago except for the fact that each MAX carrier is only about the length of those double-buses that you'd see sometimes in chicago that were connected in the middle by those black rubber, slinky looking things. the MAX rides along soo much smoother than the loud, clanky CTA trains. another awesome aspect of the MAX is that, although the fare is $1.75, it's really pretty much free most of the time. this is because the only folks enforcing the fare policy are a very limited number of uniformed inspectors. i haven't seen one yet. and there are hooks inside the MAX for hanging bicycles. pretty handy.

so, when jason and i got downtown to satyricon, a band had just finished their set. so i paid, got stamped, and went back outside to wait 25 minutes for the next band to set up and play. so, since i had some time to kill, i thought i'd explore some of the downtown area.

i walked a few blocks in a random direction (north), then i took a left onto a street that i deemed as the one i would walk down next. while walking slowly along this street i thought i would call my buddy sage back in AZ. while i was speaking with the bloke - i wasn't paying too much attention to the streets i was walking past - i thought it would be a good idea to go left down another street; so as to walk in a kind of square that would hopefully lead me back to the show.

after i got off the telephone with sage, i saw a huge bookstore called "powell's books" that comprised a building spanning an entire block. there was a guy on the nearby street corner playing a saxophone, he sounded tired. i was going to try and go into the bookstore, but the apparent entrance read "entrance around the corner on [such and such cross streets]." so i began walking alongside the huge building/bookstore. however, after walking a ways down the block and seeing no sign of any entrance, i gave up and turned around. i thought i still had a vague idea of where i should be walking to get back the show.

i got back to the corner that was directly across the street from the guy playing the saxophone. while waiting for light to turn walk, some man with pamphlets asked the guy standing next to me if he wanted a million dollars. the guy didn't answer. i wasn't asked. so, after walking along this said street for a few blocks, i guessed that maybe i should turn left again. so i did.

now, after walking along this street for a few more streets, i turned left again in vague desperation that i might find the venue there. i was walking on this sidewalk for maybe a half a block when i saw two girls ahead, walking toward me. so i moved onto the left side of the sidewalk so that the two girls could pass by on my right, freely and conveniently. once we were about 20 ft away from eachother, i could begin to see the facial features of the two girls more clearly. at about 15 feet away, i had already realized that the girl on the left was molly p*****: a girl i went to high school with, whom i'd heard lived in portland as well. i had hardly expected to run into her though, especially so soon after i got to P.

when she too realized that it was me, a look of excited comprehension filled up her face.
dropping her bag on the sidewalk next to her friend, she jubilantly ran up to me and gave me a big hug - all the while uttering words of wonderment and glee.

i was pretty taken aback. in fact i was SO weirded out by the fact the i had, completely by chance, decided to go explore downtown portland in between band sets, had gotten lost after taking all those left turns for no apparent reason, and had just happened to be walking down that sidewalk at that EXACT time. it was even the wrong sidewalk too. i was going the wrong direction, as i would later be told.

even after the hugging had subsided, and words of amazement were exchanged, i had still not fully recovered from my thoughts regarding the mathematical probability of such a wild coincident.

as it turned out, molly and her friend (who's name i have already forgotten) were headed back to the same show that i was. so i walked back with them til we got back to satyricon. the whole way molly was chuckling on and off about our chance meeting. the next band sucked. during their set i was in the lobby playing games of tetris, galaga, and pacman (75 cents total). i got the 8th ranking high score (on the easy setting) for tetris. next the band LIGHTNING BOLT played and they were pretty good. they are a two-piece that employ various pre-recorded sound bites into their tunes. kind of like, but not really like, JAPANTHER. similar setups anyway. there were soo many people in that room though. shoulder-to-shoulder. so many.

there were so many people that, even though i was originally standing in the back part of the center of the crowd, by the end of the first couple o' songs i had been irresistably pressed forward so that i was nearly all the way up front. nothing could be done.

sweat ensued.

after the show i met molly and a few of her friends outside on the street. her and i exchanged #'s and are supposedly going to start hangin'. she had a job interview for a "salesperson" at one of the local farmers markets yesterday. i haven't yet been to a farmers market here, my ex-step sister, joy s. and i were going to go this last sunday, but it was all rainy.

when i went to the grocery store on sunday, i noticed that very many people seemed to have just come from church. a couple hours later i realized it was easter.

the crazy thing about seeing molly p***** was that, since i had already known that she lived in portland, i had already been thinking about her a little; wondering if i was going to run into her or not. spellcastin' or something, i suppose.

last night (wednesday) there was a show at my house, in the basement. a good amount of people came, including dan and molly. it was the first time they had ever been to my house. they liked it.

some guy was selling home-brewed beer in the kitchen.


this guy was the second act to play. he was from philadelphia. his keytar was very photogenic, as you can see.







































after him came these two. they also were from philadelphia.





























this two-piece band is called "stick it in."













this girl was such an awesome drummer.
















as somebody in the basement put it, "that girl is a monster on those things."
























they rocked, in my opinion.


so, bands are supposed to be done playing by 10pm, but of course it doesn't always happen. that last band finished at about 10:30pm. afterward, dan and molly and i went to the 24 hour taco restaurant a block from the house. after which they went home and i went upstairs to go to sleep. a band called "peter and the wolf" was playing non-electronically in the living room as i was going to sleep.



today i had an interview at a bakery/cafe called delphina's bakery. i responded to an advertisement on craigslist and recieved and e-mail back telling me there would be interviews the next day between 1pm and 3pm. i got there at 1pm and soon there were three of us there waiting to be interviewed. the lady who interviewed us was this cool (italian?) woman. she had us do a group interview kind of a thing. which was cool. it went pretty well, though i don't think i'll get the job because the other two people had more specific experience in cafe's. but the woman seemed to like me. one of the other interviewees happened to be a guy that was at the show at my house last night. it is a little rock, after all.

this blog took me 2 hours and 45 minutes to compose.