Don’t Ever Change, Portland
Everyone says to keep Portland weird. Was it weird when we were making spaghetti breakfast pasta ala in Elf this week and videod the intern while watching to see how much of it she could eat? We’re not here to judge. So when we told people we were throwing a launch party for the release of The Music Issue presented by Urban Armor Gear in Portland, many of them remarked that we should keep Portland weird. Hold our beer we said.
Why Portland? Well, it wasn’t just because it’s a great music city (it is), but also because the guest editors for the issue, Portugal. The Man (there’s actually five mans, and one woman) call PDX home. We tried to get them to come to LA, but they said, hey it’s the first Trailblazers home game of the season, so we said, let’s get weird.
Things, in fact, got pretty weird, but granted it was only a Wednesday night.
Four Mans and a Lady.
We set up camp at the Widmer Brothers Brewing Pub on the Northwest side of town, who played host for the night. The Mans and the Woman, came by after the Trailblazers unfortunately dropped a heartbreaker to the Nuggets, but the guys seemed in high spirits. They had plenty of JuneShine Hard Kombucha and Widmer Brothers brew to raise them. And we all had an issue of Whalebone with a bright pink cover to rock out to.
We were downright shocked by the lack of facial hair on the guests. We’d heard things about Portland and beards and mustaches. Luckily our friends from Sanuk were on hand with about 200 fake Donavon Frankenreiter mustaches. Crisis averted. People that didn’t show up with facial hair, left with a heavy 12 a.m. shadow or a Donavon mustache or both.
Love ya, JuneShine.
We’re never one to shun a party crasher. And when one shambled in, we, of course, fed him some slices of the pizzas we’d just ordered. When he took a box with him outside, we assumed it was to bring back to some of his friends who might have been bellied up to the bar at the White Eagle down the street from whence he’d come. He didn’t walk back up the street. He stood outside the Pub and began throwing those pizzas at oncoming cars. Don’t worry pizza doesn’t travel very far, so it only made for him having a few pizza stains. We offered for him to crash test some of the UAG cases to see if he could throw his phone better than pizza, but he didn’t take us up on the offer.
Turns out, they were right about you Portland, though. You are weird. And a very good time.
