This is my last post on Another Portland Blog. It's been swell. Over the course of the past seven years, I've penned over 2,000 posts here. However, it's become apparent that my focus has shifted during the past year. This blog is no longer about Portland but rather the whole dang world.

So, to reflect that, I've decided to start an all new blog. Rather than stick with blogger.com's increasingly annoying and archaic software, I've opted to give Tumblr a shot. If you'd like to continue reading about my oddball travels both in Portland and abroad, follow me on over to....

anotherworldblog.com

A nifty play on words, no? OK, well, I thought was clever.

As the Finish say, ciao.

-Brandon

Labels: the end

Labels: Europe in Three Minutes or Less

Labels: Europe in Three Minutes or Less

I met Paul a while back. You know the term "an American original"? Well, Paul's a Netherlands original.

After a dinner of fish and homemade fries at the flat he shares with his fiancée in Amsterdam, he presented my gal-pal Marie and I with a crystal candy dish filled with dried worms. They came in two flavors "original" and "nacho" and looked like the meal worms I used to feed the pet turtle I had back in high school. The nacho ones weren't half bad.

After chatting for a bit, Paul asked me if I wanted to take a spin around the city in his TWIKE. These two-person "human-electric hybrid vehicles" are relatively rare but have a devoted following. A mere 850 have been sold since the TWIKE 1 debuted at the 1986 World EXPO, mostly in Germany and Switzerland.

Paul has had his for a few years now and has retrofitted it with a few interesting modifications. Blue neon lights line the inside and the cargo area is set up for a small refrigerator. Paul used it to transport fresh herring from the Netherlands during a road trip to Scandinavia. His TWIKE also has a custom paint-job. At first glance, I thought Paul was shooting for the Delorean from Back to the Future. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the TWIKE was all done up like a jet from Top Gun, complete with a pair of faux-afterburners on the back.

I jumped in the passenger seat and we set off into the night. On electric backup, the average TWIKE can run for a few hours and is capable of carrying travelers between 45 and 90 miles depending on the type of battery installed. If the driver and/or passenger are willing to pedal, however, the vehicle can journey much further. In Amsterdam, they're also street legal. Paul manuvered the TWIKE onto a busy boulevard and we buzzed through the Jordaan as pedestrians looked and pointed. At almost every intersection, someone broke out a cellphone or a camera to snap a photo. As we waited for a tram to pass, a kid on a sidewalk geeked out as if he had just spotted Santa Claus in the flesh.

Paul swung onto a quiet street and turned off the battery. I had asked him how tough it was to fuel the vehicle on pedal-power alone. We gave it a shot and it was like trying to haul a mountain bike up a San Fransisco hill. After the test, Paul flipped a switch on the dashboard. "Are you ready to take this puppy onto the freeway," he asked.

The next thing I knew, we were blasting alongside semi-trucks and SUVs. The top speed of Paul's TWIKE was 55 MPH but it can go faster at a full gallop. I figured we'd get blown off the pavement but the vehicle's aero-dynamic curves made for a smooth ride even at a fast clip.

The limited mileage on the average TWIKE renders them impractical as anything but a commuter vehicle. Even the newer models require two hours to charge on a dead battery. They also cost a pretty penny. A new model will run you somewhere in the neighborhood of $40,000 US. That said, they're a hell of a lot of fun.

Labels: bicycles

Labels: Europe in Three Minutes or Less

I think the title says everything that need be said about this one.

Labels: Europe in Three Minutes or Less

I have no idea what to call these guys or the giant music boxes that they haul around Leiden on market days. I've dubbed them the "Hurdy Gurdy Men," even though they don't actually use hurdy-gurdies. Just roll with it.

Labels: Europe in Three Minutes or Less

The father of my friend Cory once worked for the PPD. That's him on the right. This photo was taken sometime in the '70s. The gent in the socks? A rather daring public masturbater who was caught in the act on what was, hopefully for him, a warm day in downtown Portland.

Cory's mother recently found this shot in her attic. It's definitely something that belongs in a family photo album.

Labels: the law

I've been there before and so have you, no doubt. You're at a show, perhaps even up front a few feet from the band, when two people next to you decide to hold a conversation. They're completely oblivious to the music and, despite the fact that they're shouting to be heard, are behaving as if they're passing time in a cafe. Their motivations are unknown and their reasoning is oblique. Where are they there? Why did they pay for a ticket and all the annoying fees that go along with it just to ignore the performance? Do they really, really need to bitch about their boss rightthatbloodyminute?

Either I'm a magnet for these people or they're far more prevalent than I've previously surmised. These chatterboxes have tarnished plenty of nights at the Crystal Ballroom and the Roseland. I've stopped going to acoustic shows entirely. There's just no point.

Is this just a Portland phenomenon? Is there something about the city's venues that work like the Blarney Stone?

My conclusion: nope, nope and more nope.

This strange behavior is also a common occurrence over here in the Netherlands. The crowd at a September Josh Ritter show at the Paradiso in Amsterdam was well behaved but a group of Dutch guys were so obnoxious during an acoustic portion of Delorean's set in Haarlem earlier this month that the lead singer cut it short. Tift Merritt, a singer/songwriter who opened for Iron and Wine last Tuesday in Amsterdam, became visibly riled by talkers during her set. She complained to Samuel Beam backstage afterwards. During Iron and Wine's performance, he demanded that the crowd apologize to her. "All together now," Beam disdainfully announced. "SORRY, TIFT!" The audience begrudgingly went along with this.

That's not to say that crap behavior at shows is limited to talkers. There's also people who spill beer all over the place and those who film everything on their iPhone with the screen as bright as possible. Oh, and there's my personal favorite: sweat-soaked, overly-affectionate stoned couples who dance salaciously while obliviously bumping into everyone around them.

Which of these categories do I fall into? I'll give you three guesses.

Here's a video from Iron and Wine's stint. Please, enjoy!

Labels: Europe, music

Labels: Europe in Three Minutes or Less