The title should be sung in the style of “Tradition” from Fiddler on the Roof.

So today was a bit of a productive day. I challenge my fear of the Portland mass-transit system and managed to make it quite easily around town.

My first task was to get myself all prettified, which meant wearing nice slacks and the only nice white dress shirt I own (if you’ve known me for more than six months, you have seen this shirt). I looked good. I looked damn good. I grabbed my man bag, stuffed with The Glass Menagerie (“Pleurosis! I thought you said blue roses!“), some resume/headshots, and a notepad in case creativity struck me (it didn’t), and headed off into the wild Portland yonder. (more…)

I would generally consider myself a moderate person, Aristotelian in that I believe too much excess or deficit is harmful to the body and psyche.  I spend a lot of my time trying to get the right amounts of everything, whether it be food, drink, or the right amount of reverb on a particular song.  Usually, then, when it comes to morality and ethics, I can be pretty moderate, with some exceptions. (more…)

Last night I had some weird dreams. I think it was because I was hopped up on candy and soda (I know, I’m such a party animal these days). The only one I remember clearly was about me chasing down my brother’s dog Bitamus (a giant Great Dane) through my old neighborhood, because some people wanted to kill him? Capture him? I don’t know. Anyway, at some point I found out that Bitamus was actually a hologram or something, and was inside a laptop. So I had to protect the laptop. And then I meet the bad guy, right in my old front yard. He’s got a gun and is about to shoot me. At this point my neighbor, Joan, mother of my two earliest friends, Mark and Doug, walks slowly down her driveway, smoking a cigarette. She doesn’t seem to notice that I’m in dire straits, which is somewhat frustrating. I don’t know how, but I manage to get behind the bad guy, but I’m on the ground, and he’s standing over me with his back to my face. So I, not shitting you, grab the guy’s ankles and kick him in the taint as hard as I can, multiple times, while shouting at Joan to for the love of god call the police, and the guy starts shooting at me from behind (why he didn’t just shoot my leg or something, I’ll never know). And that’s when I wake up. At 3am, full of fighting energy.

So sue me if I slept in today.

Ah, Saturday. One of two days of the week where work is thrown out the window, where the sunshine can be fully enjoyed, and where, at night, the whores come out. This Saturday was no different, as walking by various clubs can attest to; women in skirts so short they might as well be called shirts, men wearing cologne so powerful it is sure to be on the periodic table of elements soon. And crazy people babbling to themselves as though they were at a bar, when they are really on the corner of a busy intersection. This is a Saturday night in Portland, and it was part of our Saturday night, the final night of MFNW. (more…)

Well, last night was marred by something that was bound to happen eventually: I got rejected from the Doug Fir Lounge for having an expired license. So day three of MFNW was a little choppy, and it was mostly my fault, so let me explain in more detail… (more…)

Yesterday was, in some ways, more successful than Wednesday, as yesterday we got to see Del. And that’s the coolest thing ever. We lost Paul for most of the day because he was playing in a softball game, which meant it was just Missy and me. I had to be Primary Navigator, which is never, ever good. And since the Wonder Ballroom, our first location, was not downtown whatsoever, I was a little worried about how the hell we were going to get there. I have a terrible sense of direction, thanks to the almost non-existent bus system in Boise and the fact that downtown there is about four blocks total. Paul supplied us with directions and buses to take, though, and they were spot on, so thanks for that, Paul! (more…)

It’s incredibly beautiful and sunny out in Portland today, as it has been the last couple of days, and the weather couldn’t be better for MFNW. First, I am very grateful to Paul and Missy from /orate for being kind enough to get me into the whole festival in the first place, being a poor, recently-transported son of a bitch. This was technically my third time ever meeting anyone from the internet, though the first time doesn’t count cause she lived in Boise too. These kinds of meetings always start off weird, but Paul and Missy are very cool and not crazy or weird at all. I think that stigma of internet people being strange and/or socially inept is starting to wane, as it should, since everyone uses the internet these days, and we can’t all be socially inept, right? (more…)

Here I am in beautiful sunny Portland, OR, sitting at the edge of my bed, at a computer desk which is much more accommodating than my old computer desk, my bed being, as mentioned in the blog title, a third larger than my old bed. I’ll always be one step ahead of you in the bed department, Aaron Kiefer. One step ahead… (more…)

By the end of this week I will be living in a small bedroom in my brother’s house in Portland, Oregon, with probably about $50 in my pocket and a plan in my head. Since Monday I’ve been staying at my parents’ house, which is calm and secluded and unchanging like a Walt Whitman poem. My only regret is that I can’t take all of my friends with me. My problem has always been my introverted nature (surprising to some). I’m a bit of a loner. So the irony is that moving to Portland, and being even more of a loner, kind of frightens me, because being pulled away from my friends made me realize how many friends I had. I don’t regret having a lot of friends. (more…)

My neighbor and friend Megan once told me of a list a friend of hers made — a “hierarchy of men,” segregating the different types of males depending on their basic archetypes: assholes, regular guys, momma’s boys, etc. I thought this hierarchy was brilliant, and decided to make a list of my own. I call it Types of Dudes. My list includes five basic types of men — Bros, Sweet Dudes, Nerds, Normal Guys, and Serial Killers — and includes their behavior, traits, and a brief rundown of their favorite things. So, without further ado, I present to you … Types of Dudes. (more…)