Thomas at the Ace Hotel... oh and E Honda
I can’t express in enough words how blessed I am to have spent this past week with my good friends in Portland. Meeting new people, seeing new places and finding a city that I truly think could be my second home. On August 1st, I left with my friends Sully (Patrick Sullivan) and Sean to go up to Oregon. They both live in Salem and the plan was to meet my friend Thomas there and continue my drive one hour north to Portland. The drive itself was uneventful but fun. Listening to Stand up Comedy the entire way made the trip seem less of a chore and was entertaining. Lots of talk about movies, music and more kept the ride upbeat. It’s hard to be in a car with people for twelve or more hours and not get into an argument but it never happened. Truly lucky for that.
My time with Sean was, as I said, uneventful, but good. It didn’t feel long enough at all, but in that close space I think we said everything we needed to… at least until we meet up again. Once in Salem I met up with Thomas and we continued our drive and he explained to me about all the cool things Portland had to offer. We got there pretty late and we went out to get some food at a place called Roxy’s. This was downtown not far from Powell’s books and the Living Room Theater. Very cool, friendly and nice gay bear of a server gave us our meal and I had the Quinten Tarantuna sandwich on rye bread. Delicious but ultimately destructive… the bathroom experiences for the next day were NOT pleasant.
We wandered around Powell’s for a bit. This book store is amazing. Giant comic book/graphic novel section, board games and more. Totally cool, easy to get lost in, great art, and the big book of penises IN 3D! I mean just a GIANT BOOK FILLED WITH COCKS! It was AMAZINGLY HILARIOUS! I know what I’m getting Thomas for his birthday. In fact I might just order it for him now and send it as a present. That’s “The Big Penis Book”. Easy to find on Amazon…ooooo and I get free shipping.
Seeing Thomas’ wife Courtney again was fantastic. She’s one of the nicest people in the world and I absolutely adore spending time with the two of them. They really are an amazing couple. They argue sure, but they work thinks out in a logical and lovely fashion. Watching them argue is great because you can tell there’s true love there and when they work things out it’s incredible to see. They have two boys, Elliot and Tetris. Tetris is two months and Elliot is coming up on 2 years… which means he’s a complete terror.
Myself and Elliot
In fact here’s a picture of Elliot and myself just hanging out. The little guy is absolutely one of the craziest kids I’ve ever met. he just loves to run around like a berserk animal and do flips, go flying and take dives off the couch. It’s incredible to see how active and brave he is. He’s like the Honey Badger, he just doesn’t give a shit.
I had a life altering moment with Tetris. He was crying, laying there screaming and Thomas was working on dinner and Courtney was at work and Thomas asked me to pick him up. I really didn’t think that’d do anything but he just calmed down and I rocked him back to sleep and I felt for just a second that “I could be a great dad one day.”
Over the week I went to Ground Kontrol, an amazing arcade/bar filled with retro games and even had a perfect working cabinet for Street Fighter III: Third Strike. Had a lot of fun playing that and was better than I thought I’d be. Still suck at that basket ball return mini-game. There’s DDR, a DJ, X-Men, Nintendo Play Choice 10 and more. It’s such a sweet place. Oh and upstairs is just packed with like 50 pin ball machines, all of them working and all of them great.
I had a really cool experience playing this 4 player VS Pac-Man game with Thomas our friend Chris and this really cute blonde girl. She was there with her boyfriend who was clearly a sober douche. Now I’m not saying being sober is a bad thing at all. Thomas is completely sober, never drinks at all, and he’s an amazing person. This guy was just NOT HAPPY to be in an arcade. She was totally into it and he was pointing out shit in the arcade and saying how dumb it is. How is it that cute nerdy chicks wind up with the biggest, wettest drips of all time? So lame. Also they happen to be from the bay area and were on my returning flight. We didn’t speak much but I gave her my card… he was NOT happy about that.
Another place we went was this really great grill called “The Portland City Grill” which is on the 30th floor of this tower called “Big Pink”. It’s not really called that, but it’s pretty much what everyone calls it. From there we had a great view of the entire city, the river that divides it and all the bridges. 3 dollar sushi and 5 dollar drafts (including Stella… YAY!). It was an amazing night. Voodoo Doughnuts rounded out the night and it was cool but 100% totally over rated. The 2 hour line that can exist just to get a tiny confectionary treat is just not worth standing through. OH and the homeless people are ass holes… excuse me while I take this rude divergence:
Hey homeless girl? Yeah you. The one holding up a giant sign that says “IGNORE ME! I’M DIRTY!”. Yes you. I have a question. HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO IGNORE YOU WHEN YOU’RE HOLDING UP A SIGN!? Don’t try to fucking guilt trip me into giving you money! It’s not hard to get a job in Portland. I saw plenty of places with Help Wanted signs in the windows and they all seemed really fucking cool. Even the diviest of pizza joints had character. Calm your tits, take a shower and go work. Thanks <3
Ok back to the trip at hand:
Thomas Instagrammed the movie. HILARIOUS!
We went to the Laurelhurst Theater where Thomas and I watched an original print of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I’d always wanted to see it on the big screen. It was classic. Big dirty smudges and marks, scratches and audio pops. It was great. Exactly what I wanted. Sure I want to see that movie cleaned up beautifully like it was new, but at the same time this was special. Some one has been caring for this thing for 34 years and they’ve done a great job.
Now Voodoo Doughnuts… Hi. Your lines are long… your prices are a little bit higher than they should be and your doughnuts? Yeah you have a lot and yes they are crazy, but do you deserve the reputation you have? Not really. There are few things that make Voodoo Doughnuts suck ass and one of them is the location and the people that hang out in front of it. I don’t hate on street kids. I have street kids who are friends… but when their entire goal is to fuck with tourists in a touristy place, they’re just ass holes and I can’t respect them. I understand the freedom of being off the grid and choosing that life style. I really do… but why oh why do you feel as though you have the right to fuck with people or be in their way? I just don’t understand it. That having been said yes it was tasty, yes it was an experience, but no I will never go there again and if I move to Portland I’ll ignore the place like the plague.
Since I’ve mentioned Voodoo I guess I should talk about other Portland food I experienced. Laughing Planet cafe seems like a cool place, but I didn’t really get to eat anything there. I can’t wait to go back and chow down on one of their burritos. Elephant Deli has an AMAZING tomato and orange soup and for 5 bucks you can get it and a grilled cheese that is just fantastic. Cool little place, quick lunch that is very filling and unique. Great texture on the soup. Cascade Brewing Co has a large selection of sour beers that are mind blowingly good. I got a smoked chicken sammich there that had the perfect smokey and savory flavors, paired with their Apple Pie beer (yes it sounds weird but is AMAZING) it’s a great lunch/dinner. They don’t really have a lot of food sadly.
Rogue Brewing Co was a massive disappointment. The service was poor, our food sat under lamps for nearly 10 minutes and their beer, while good wasn’t my style. I prefer dryer/smoother beers with a sour hint to them. Rogue seems to be especially happy with how bitter their beers our. Their Morimoto Soba was fantastic though. A great Japanese import style that hit the spot. I love fish and chips with beer but mine came to me cold and therefore weren’t anything special. Never put a first time waitress on during a busy sports night at a brewery. It’s just not smart.
If you’ve watched my youtube videos then you probably know that I’m a fan of hookahs. I love them. I have 7 or 8… maybe even 9 myself. Thomas also loves hookah and I wanted to smoke with him since it’d be the first time we had in a year. We went to a place called King’s Hookah Lounge… NEVER GO TO THIS PLACE. Let me just explain with my Yelp Review.
DO NOT GO HERE! Go to the Pied Cow instead!
17 dollars to smoke in a hot room with zero ventilation AND EAR WIGS INFESTING THEIR SOFAS! Yes there are BUGS EVERYWHERE in this gross place.
This is a place that used to be a convenience store and is now an over prized hookah lounge. 17 dollars for dirty smoke, slow service and zero air. Keeping a place ventilated is incredibly important when smoking. Walking into this place I felt as though there was zero oxygen left in the air. There’s a contamination of smoke flavors. It’s hard to tell what you’re smoking because you’re smelling and breathing the second hand smoke from the other people in the building.
Went to the Pied Cow later for great service with amazing ventilation and a real outdoor option, also cleaner hookahs as well as drinks and food. Oh and did I mention it was cheaper?
E. Honda at The Pied Cow
Yeah that’s right go to the Pied Cow. After going to the sour beer hall, Cascade, Chris, Thomas and myself wanted to get a smoke so we went to Pied Cow on Belmont. OH MY GOD IS THIS PLACE AWESOME OR WHAT?! The Pied Cow is a house that’s been turned into a Greek restaurant as well as a hookah lounge. We sat outdoors at a great big wooden spool that’s been turned into a table. For 16 bucks we got a big melon flavored hookah to share. They also had great beers and ciders on tap as well as a cool selection of food and a drink that turns your mouth numb called kava. It’s a really great place. It didn’t hurt that it has the most gorgeous women working there that I’ve ever seen. They’re all tall, slender and dress like pin ups… oh and they have sexy tattoos. God I love a woman with great skin and ink. The Pied Cow could be my favorite place on earth right now.
At the living room theater where I saw Cave of Dreams in 3d (terrible movie, walked out), I met this dude Michael who is friends with Thomas and room mates with Chris and his girlfriend Maria. After Pied Cow we ended back at their place and there was a fire pit, Mint Juleps and beer. I met Michael’s girlfriend Narayani. We all talked about film a lot, got into a debate about sci-fi vs space opera and which Thomas preferred (he likes the more grounded sci-fi like X-Files or Fringe). It was just a great night that ended with the bowl game… a game where people put names, phrases, movie titles, sentences relating to nothing on pieces of paper. Those papers are put into a hat/bowl or in this case a bowler hat (FANCY!), the people are split up into teams and some one has to grab a piece of paper and describe what’s on the paper without acting it out or using any of the words on the paper. This is a lot of fun if people are tipsy or like Phillip are actors. I was surprised by Michael’s lacking ability in this game… I’ll chalk it up to the drink and the smoke.
Everyone seems to want me to move… and I think I might have to. I really love the city and now it’s all about convincing my partner Matt that it’s a good idea. I mean there’s so much to do there and The72Pins could really become something cool and have a local movement there. I can’t wait to go back. I already miss Tetris and Elliot and Courtney and Thomas and Chris and Mike and Narayani and everyone else… it’s such a cool place. MUST RETURN SOON!
