Results tagged “portland”

Thank the gods of Olympus! Amtrak's twice-a-day Seattle-Vancouver train service starts a week from today, on August 19, 2009. (UPDATE: Seattle Transit Blog says Thursday the 20th. Here's the current train schedule.) Seattle rail passengers will be able to depart at 7:40 a.m. or 6:40 p.m. and arrive in Vancouver, B.C., at about 11:35 a.m. or 10:45 p.m, respectively. From Vancouver, the southbound Amtrak Cascades train will leave at 6:40 a.m., hitting Seattle four-ish hours later, and arriving in Portland at 2:45 p.m. We get the train to help us get to the 2010 Olympic and Paralympics Winter Games, with no promises for after the Games are done.

All the signs were there--a functional transit system, government endorsement of the weedbud, and all that damn bicycling--but the evidence is incontrovertible now that Portland has banished its baseball team in favor of a pro soccer franchise.

More than 70,000 beer lovers are expected to make the stumbling pilgrimage to Portland’s Oregon Brewer’s Festival, running today through Sunday at Tom McCall Waterfront Park. If you love beer, this is the place to be, whether you’re an aficionado or a swiller; a spitter or a guzzler.

Portland, how did this food-lover overlook you for ten years? We took the train down, which was a pleasant, relaxing experience--except that the last couple of miles or so took about about 20 minutes due to work on the tracks. No big deal, except that instead of arriving at 1:50 p.m. as planned (perhaps even earlier), we were late and unable to get to Park Kitchen ahead of its 2 o'clock closing time, even though it's mere minutes from the station. Instead, we rolled the luggage through Chinatown to Ping, where we picked out a few Asian eats for late lunch. And then rolled our way to our first hotel. We were told it's too far to walk, but walking was good exercise after being on the train, allowing us to get our bearings and enabling us to ogle some food carts with jealousy.

As if there's not enough going on in our neck of the woods, there's a couple upcoming music fests in Portland too. July 24-26 is the sixth annual PDX Pop Now!, a free, all-ages fest set to include Portland-centric performers Menomena, Shaky Hands, Thrones, the Mint Chicks, Laura Gibson, and many more. Yet another reason to head south (if you can handle the attitude) is Musicfest NW, scheduled for September 16-19. The lineup, announced today, includes Sunny Day Real Estate (as part of their month-long jaunt), Girl Talk, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Mudhoney, and more. Ticket information here.

"I think the Decemberists are a great band, and I think there are some similarities: we are both folkish and use more varied instrumentation than most rock bands. I think that if you actually sit and listen to both bands, you'd see that they both are coming from very different places. The era of songs that drive and influence the majority of the Builders' material is early Depression-era blues, folk, and gospel, and weirder stuff like Tom Waits."

Phillip Margolin will be reading from his most recent suspense-filled legal thriller, Fugitive, at 7 p.m., on Wednesday, June 17, at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park. Margolin was nice enough to share some insight with us on his latest novel, and his life in general.

Rumor has it that you can't build yourself up by tearing someone else down. That advice never made it to Portland, though. Evidence: The 2009 Rosey Awards site is all about sneering at other so-called creative communities, including our own. (See above.)

Their bloodfeud over use of greenscreen long forgotten, our precious Stephen Colbert allowed the Decemberists back on the Report last night, and he even let them have two segments, one with a mini-interview and one with a song performance (a la TV on the Radio). Above is the interview, in which Stephen tells them they should name an album You're Beautiful, Honey, makes a crack about biking in Portland, and mocks Colin Meloy's ample 19th-century sideburns.

At this point, who doesn't love The Thermals? Your mom might not like that they play their music so loud and that their second album title featured the f-bomb, but even she'd have to admit that all their songs are pretty dang catchy (her words, not ours). Personally, we have loved them since their debut, the delightfully messy, sneeringly lo-fi More Parts Per Million, born of the fertile womb of Bush administration angst. The Portland post-powerpop-punk three-piece has continued to grow and evolve (and change lineups) over time, such that their last full-length was a concept album about living in a right-wing fascist theocracy. But now here we are at the dawn of a new political era, and The Thermals have a cautiously hopeful album to match. It's about death, of course. We spoke to Valley Girl-voiced singer Hutch Harris in anticipation of the band's show at Neumo's tomorrow night (8pm doors, $15, all ages).

Virtually all dance performance is, in one way or another, an exploration of the human body: the dancers are lithe and athletic--look at the movement, the balance, the elegant contortions that the body, fine-tuned as an instrument, is capable of! But Portland's tEEth (at On the Boards tonight and tomorrow at 8 p.m., $18), in their world-premiere work , have another way to explore the body: through sound.

Before we even start getting into the coolness of chelfitsch's performance last weekend at On the Boards, we need to apologize for something: We try to make sure to let readers know about events in time to get tickets, but for the second time this season, OtB sold out before we started plugging. This is their 30th anniversary season, and the line-up has really rocked, so consider this your notice for the month.

YET ANOTHER ENGLISH SONGSTRESS: If you like your soul blue-eyed and British, London's Adele hits up Neumo's tonight with her breathy, honeyed voice for an all-ages show. Tickets are sold out, but it looks as if Craigslist has a few, though you have several other fans (and high ticket costs) to contend with. Similarly-minded singer-songwriter James Morrison opens.

Kim is shooting from the hip this weekend (papow!). The only solid plan is her friend's weekly L Word watching party on Sunday. Between now and then, she'll probably go see Shenandoah Davis at 2020 Cycle with Your Heart Breaks and KHV. Maybe there'll be a delicious meal culled from our local farmers markets. Maybe she'll hop on a train and go to Portland. Anything could happen, people. Anything.

Oh, Portland! This Seattlest contributor's hometown is currently in the midst of its biggest and juiciest political scandal in years. Turns out, Mayor Sam Adams, the city's first openly gay mayor, had a relationship with a legislative aid intern who , Tim Keck's Portland alt-weekly, has been drawn into the entire mess with accusations she helped cover up the affair.

The Congressional Bike Caucus, founded by Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Portland, gets a boost from the NYT. In case you're wondering who represents for the spokes-folks in Washington State, it's alternative-energy friendly Jay Inslee, Adam Smith, Rick Larsen, and Jim McDermott.

Portland-based Blind Pilot were not only chosen as Starbucks' "Pick of the Week" for the week of January 3rd, they're also loved by NPR and KEXP, and now, by us.

ONE MAN ARMY Rap gods be praised, One Be Lo is back in town! This man's sharp mind never fails to astound and inspire us. What we've said in the past: "He is a master lyricist, an assertive, seasoned spitter of rhyme and reason." On the bill with him are Spaceman (he slays every stage we've ever seen him on), Othello outta Portland repping Lightheaded, and Helladope, the latter of which has been getting some love from The Stranger recently.

She may still have far too much work to do this weekend, but Kim will emerge from her cocoon for two very important shows. Tonight, it's Sera Cahoone at a secret, undisclosed location and Kim refuses to spill the beans. Continuing the vaguely country theme, she'll end the weekend Sunday night at Chop Suey with the lovely and talented Star Anna.

Okay, we're back from a Portland jaunt, and we learned two brunch things: first, the portions at Gravy are enormous and you will only get halfway through them, so a side isn't necessary, no matter how delicious and fluffy a biscuit sounds. Second, even though the menu at the Doug Fir Lounge offers you a choice between spinach or ham on your eggs benedict, if you order spinach and ham, the staff says, "Sure!" and then there it is--a spinach and ham eggs benedict. Yeah, we know. We got all choked up, too.

We wrote this before watching the end of last night’s Blazers vs. Rockets OT thriller, won on a Brandon Roy three with 0.8 seconds left.

As controversy swirls over whether or not Darcy Burner has misrepresented her college economics education in a bid to portray herself as better prepared than her opponent David Reichert to deal with the current crisis, local liberal blog HorsesAss.org is calling into question Reichert's own college education. According to his official bio, Reichert received a BA from Concordia University, a small Lutheran college in Portland, Ore., in 1970. However, HorsesAss.org is suggesting that Concordia didn't offer four year programs until a decade later. Indeed, according the university's own history, the first four-year program students didn't graduate until 1980. () UPDATE: Since this post went up, Reichert's bio has been changed to read "A.A." instead of "B.A." The original language can be seen here at archive.org. This would seem to confirm that David Reichert does not have a bachelor's degree at all. UPDATE 2: It appears this error may not stem from the candidate. Reichert's self-provided CV in the official voters' guide does in fact list his degree as A.A.

Amtrak has some good prices going fast for its fall fare sale. You have to order your tickets by Friday, August 8, and you can get to such exotic locales as Wenatchee ($19), Spokane ($37), and Portland ($24). Whitefish, Montana, is just $67 and...let's see...multiply the denumberator...323 hours away. Those are all one-way prices, and you gotta travel between September 2 and December 11, 2008. Still, $48 r/t to Portland is not bad, though we advise you to invest the savings in business class, or, if you decide to stick it out in coach, a beer helmet.

          

The Tour de Fat bicycle festival, sponsored by New Belgium Brewery, took place at Gasworks Park today. Naturally we bicycled over to see what it was all about. On the way, two guys in a pickup pulled up next to us and rolled down the window. Uh oh, we thought. "Hey, nice bike!" they yelled. "And nice shirt!" (We were wearing the cream of our Hawaiian shirt collection.) They gave us a thumbs up. Then they roared off again. Tour de Fat was kinda like that.

As Tuesday afternoon rolls around, we're trying to recall what we did last weekend and remember—hey yeah!—we hit two concerts: a five-band line-up at the Showbox on Friday, and Nine Inch Nails on Saturday. How could we have forgotten? Oh that's right, it was a boring-as-hell time.

Ahh, Saturday! A chronologically arranged discussion of the Block Party, Day Zwei (Day Eins here):

  

As 7:30 a.m. rolled around, we were ready for breakfast and tired of slowly following the STP riders through Kent, so we made our way back to I-5 and headed south to the first of two stops that took us away from the bicyclists' course.

Add this to the list of "another reason to consider moving to Portland." A statewide initiative is being launched in Oregon this week to legalize marijuana and to sell it as a taxable, controlled substance at Oregon stores, similar to alcohol.

Yesterday, we inquired how all of you had stayed cool over the blazing weather this weekend in the Pacific Northwest. Thankfully, none of you submitted the following idea, which was enacted by two Portland 20-somethings.