Sigh, hipsters

This is the blog post that I have been putting off for over a week.  Danielle, here it finally is.  I was avoiding it because I know it's going to get me all riled up.  To be honest, if it didn't, I wouldn't do the post any justice because it made me riled up enough to take notes in Portland so I could rage in blog form.

Hipsters.

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiigggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUgggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

ok, now, where to begin.  I used to think that Seattle and Portland weren't so very different.  I've heard Portland compared to Seattle of twenty years ago, that's PDX is SEA's little brother. It's definitely not the city I remember from a few short trips there over the years.  And it's not Seattle. 

Immediate reactions: It's white.  REALLY white.  The official figures say that PDX is about 97% white and that the 3% racial diversity exists in just one or two neighborhoods.

It's a social city.  There are probably more bars and restaurants per capita in the city than any I've been to.  They are for the most part very new or remodeled, with interesting food but similar style choices.

Seattle is by it's nature a casual city.  Polar fleece is an acceptable accessories in all seasons and nearly all venues. REI probably sells as many articles of clothing as JC Penneys. Gortex is a necessity, if not a sleek clothing choice.  I usually feel a bit overdressed when I go out, but I'm ok with that.  I would rather be the most put together person in the bar than another disastrous hiker/biker/Seattle action figure who forgot to change after the days outing. Portland takes casual and poorly dressed to a new level. They don't make the small but important distinction between functional wear and appropriate wear.  Seattleites are guilty of going out in clothing that was meant for a purpose - rock climbing, camping - not for fashion.  Portlanders either don't realize there's a difference or scoff at it in wearing clothing who's purpose was to clothe a college student when they couldn't afford anything better or know any better.  Oh wait. . . that doesn't quite work since they spent more on their ironic t-shirt and poorly fitting skinny jeans than I did on my work-sleek Calvin Klein dress and heels. 

Hipsters all think they are unique and different.  What they don't see is that they are all minutely different versions of the same.  Is this what the "you can do anything, you are a special flower" parenting books have lead to?

Select any three (I think three is enough, four is a definite minimum though) of the following list and you have a hipster:

• Converse
• skinny jeans, double points for skinny colored pants.
• Unnecessary wide belt with big buckle.  The pants are already so tight you had to have help getting them on.  I know your butt is hanging out but the belt won't help with that.
• An "ironic/funny" t-shirt.  They are never either.  Double points of it's seriously worn.
• A Jason Mraz hat
• Homeless lumberjack beard.  It could be housing a chipmunk (not the Alvin persuasion), last week's pizza leftovers or the axe you'll use to murder me.
• A bad haircut or lack of haircut.  I have trouble seeing the difference between the dirty hippie folks who haven't cut their hair because they don't care and the hipsters who spent $65 to look the same way. Triple points for homeless lumberjack beard and long stringy Kurt Cobain-esque hair.  Or alternately, Justin Bieber hair on a male over the age of 17.
• Super high waisted colored super short shorts. I've only seen them on females, but who knows what's possibly. Double points if they are short enough her ass is trying to escape out the bottom.
• A long hippie, flowing skirt that you then decide is too long and too flowy so it's tied up at the knee.
• A plaid button up shirt.  In a concert sea of bodies,  plaid is plaid is all the same plaid. 
• BCGs. These are the black, chunky rimmed glasses.  A friend from the military told me they call them BCGs - birth control glasses - because they are the only style the military will pay for and you ain't getting laid if you wear em.  Now the caveat might be that you'll get laid, but by another hipster.  You've been warned.
• Flat billed ballcap.  Break that sh*t in. And don't wear it high on your head, like Heather, this girl I went to junior high with.  She'd spray her bangs up big, like Kelly Kapowski in SBTB and then put the hat on behind it.  (if you do not understand this reference, stop reading now.  You can go google it and still not really understand or you are under 25 and will never understand either). As an aside here, also no super flimsy, 80's style, windbreaker material ballcaps.
• Neon anything.  Again, I feel like this could easily segue into a Saved by the Bell reference.The brighter the better, especially tops, hats or accessories. 
• Keds on men. This isn't Europe and you aren't Swedish.
• Old school raybans.  You know the ones I mean that are really in, again.  Like they were twenty years ago.
• A mustache.  Now this is a tricky one to write.  I like a good mustache.  Good being the pivotal word in that sentence. This is where my new motto comes in to play.  JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN, DOESNT MEAN YOU SHOULD*.  Sure, you can grow a mustache.  It looks ridiculous on you, your face is rejecting it and you haven't realized it. We are all shaking our heads and chuckling. Waxing it out Rolly Fingers style (again, google it) doesn't make it look less ridiculous.  Now there are a few folks that can pull it off.  There was a fill-in Seattleite guitarist for the band The Heavy at Bumbershoot.  He looked fantastic, plaid shirt, waxed mustache and all. *Apply motto to aforementioned beards, skinny jeans and buying a Hummer.
• Tom's. ick.

 Apparently it means that I was fashionable at seven.  I used to wear leggings and neon all the time. I wore the windbreaker hat, the raybans (in neon colors of course), keds.  I hated getting my haircut and had the predecessor to the Bieber cut (accidental and unfortunate I can assure you).

For the sake of your sanity and mine, I'll cap today's blog there and allow my rant to spill over to tomorrow.  Look for more scathing hipster don't, don't and why do they's tomorrow.

**Do I need to include googled photos of all this stuff?  I'd imagine a fair number of you know and can picture exactly what I'm referencing.  If photos are requested, I'll add some.

MFNW part dos

On Friday I ventured out to The Doug Fir for two KEXP Lounge shows.  The Doug Fir is a little restaurant/bar/performance area that looks like a log cabin and is on the corner of/affiliated with a newer hotel. The lounge was a floor underground, which on a 85 degree day provided a wonderful cool respite that more than once was compared to a cave. I missed The Pains of Being Pure at Heart due to a fire that delayed the buses (it's always something isn't it?) so I skipped over to Sizzle Pie to wait for the next show.  Sizzle Pie is a mini-chain in Portland for gourmet pizza that was fantastic.  I would never have thought to put sliced almonds with thin pieces of roast, garlic and two kinds of cheese, but man did it work.  I also treated myself to a Crispins cider and then a local Caldera Amber, which despite being canned, was great.

Upon wrapping up there, I plunged into the underground world of The Doug Fir for Lost Lander.  I'm a big fan.  They have a great sound, which at some points was a tiny bit like Cold War Kids, at other points was more like a band who I like and whose name is completely eluding me right now. They are coming to Seattle Sunday!

After the Lost Lander show, I emerged blinking into the sun and happily strolled to the patio for a Flat Tire Sunshine beer. Very appropriate for the day. I stayed around to catch the Black Mountain show.  Again, it was a band I'd never heard of.  In every way they were a great Zepplin cover band, except that it was original music.  The female singer looked like she was the daughter of the male lead, appearing maybe 18.  She presented a totally unaffected demeanor at all times.  There was never a smile or a scream. She was either high or bored.  Musically, they sounded like Zepplin from the choices of chords, to the feedback and reverb. I was left thinking "why wouldn't I just listen to Zepplin?"

Danielle met me at the outdoor stage at Pioneer Courthouse Square for two shows, but I got there first and saw Gardens & Villa. I wasn't paying a lot of attention at this point as I was people watching and making hipster notes. They seemed benign though not totally uninteresting. The crowd was about the same and both Gardens and Menomena suffered from an apathetic crowd and lots of synthesizers too early in the day. Danielle came in part was through the Menomena show.  Again, I believe they are local.  The area was starting to fill and they put on a good show but were hampered by the stage orientation which had them facing straight into the sun.  The last show at Pioneer was Beirut which required an additional ticket (included in our ticket fee). I feel like I need to listen to them again while not surrounded by and irritated by hipsters. They look like what happens when band nerds get older but don't grow up.  I liked the use of tuba, trombone (both played by a guy who also played keyboard), trumpet (played by a guy that reminds me of ten Spaniards I've met) and even accordion. There was a feeling of trying to do too much on stage by having six members who all changed instruments and stage position. They were clearly a crowd favorite as the area had filled and folks were pushed up towards the stage.

Danielle and I left before the end to make our way over to the Star Theater. The Star was a nice venue.  Small inside with a long skinny set up with a stage at one end, but a big patio outside with two bars.  It was busy but not overly packed.  We had dealings with a waitress who was vacant.  It's strange to run in to someone who is really honestly dumb as rocks.  She had trouble reciting the beers on tap to us even while using her cheat sheet.  A couple more beers here while not paying much attention to Moon Duo (other than to notice the guy in it looked like an appropriately aged and heavily bearded Manson), or Daughn Gibson. Out on the patio we had a interesting conversation with an American Spirit Tobacco Sales Rep about quitting smoking campaigns. We did move in from the patio to hear The Pains of Being Pure at Heart who I liked more than I thought I would.

At this point we didn't have to roam far to find a taxi who, upon Danielle's direction, took us to a Taco Bell where we dismounted the cab and walked through the drive-through. I didn't think they'd serve us since every drive through now has a sign saying "must be in motorized vehicle" but Danielle persuaded the woman to take our order for tacos and nachos.  I wonder how often Taco Bell employees get tipped. The walk that Danielle swore was only a mile was probably a couple of miles and we both launched into bed post haste.

MusicFestNW

I had good timing for my Portland trip and I didn't even choose it. The company I interviewed with chose the date and time to meet me. It just so happened that it was the same time as MusicFestNW, an eleven year old, four day music festival in Portland. Wooooo! Instead of driving down, interviewing and driving back, I stayed two nights and suffered through two days. Danielle (from previous Bumbershoot blog) was gracious enough to host me and we made plans to do MFNW together on Friday.

I was left to my own devices on Thursday. At about 6pm I walked with Brittany (Danielle's sister) to a great local pub in an area PDX seems to be trying hard to regentrify. The place was beautiful, the jalapeno poppers homemade and fantastic, the local beers different and interesting. From there  I headed to McMenamins Crystal Ballroom to pick up our wristbands, then I stayed for two shows. Fort Lean replaced The Hundred in the Hands.  I'd never heard of them and apparently they are a local to PDX band.  They had a great sound, very up beat and a blend of good song writing with head bopping beats.  It took a while to figure out who they were, as MFNW wasn't good about posting changes like Bumbershoot.  McMenamin's owns several  locations in Washington and probably a dozen in Oregon.  The Ballroom was a pretty good venue; the acoustics were good, it was on the third floor and had a nice bouncy floor for when we jumped around.  There was a sectioned off bar on the audience floor and they had canisters of water out which was necessary considering it was about a million degrees by the time the second show let out.

The second show was Passion Pit. I'd missed their show the week before at Bumbershoot and was happy to catch them at the Crystal Ballroom. They had performed for MFNW at the Crystal the night before.  They didn't let the second show slide but put on an energetic, crowd roaring performance.  The audience was keyed up, singing along and jumping/dancing along. I only know who or three of their songs but thoroughly enjoyed the show.  Both Fort Lean and Passion Pit had something that a few of the Bumbershoot shows were missing - great music engineers.  The vocals were lost to overly reverbed guitars and thumping bass beats. The light show for PP kept the audience as rapt as their electronic feats.

Since this got much longer than I intended, I'll break Thursday's and Friday's reviews into two blog posts.  Friday is even longer.  Apparently, I like talking about music. Who knew? (wink, wink)

A Jaunt to PDX

After Bumbershoot ended on Monday, I had a couple days to recover and then on Thursday I headed south to Portland for an interview. In someways, Portland is similar to Seattle.  Many people say it's like the little brother - Still trying to decide what it wants to be, spending a lot of time drinking and lounging around.  It definitely doesn't have a big commercial centers like Seattle does in downtown and on the eastside with Microsoft, Nintendo and the like.
The interview went well but it's still in process to see if I'm going to make the move and take a job there. There is lots of potential, both in the position and with the company which is young and growing. It would be a bump in responsibility and title (hopefully with a commensurate bump in pay) but it would mean moving to Portland and after just two days there, I'm not sure that's a pill I can swallow.  More study is needed.

Revelations from the road:

The speeds for traffic leaving Portland were faster than the speeds when I was headed in to Portland.  You may see why over the next couple posts.

On my way back to Seattle, I saw two houses, a jet plane minus the wings, three hydroplanes, cars with bikes, surfboards and kayaks on top, and two cars changing flat tires. Impressive for just 170 miles.

As much as gas is at home ($3.85 when I filled up to go) it was much more on the road.  I paid $4.15 half way home from Portland. Ugh.

I think Washington was made for nerds and geeks before we even knew there'd be so many gamers here.  There are towns like Ryderwood and Vader.

Between that trip and then one out to Ravensdale I put 400 miles on the car in four days.  And we both survived. 

Expect tomorrow's blog to be my review of shows I saw at MusicfestNW.  I am intentionally putting off my hipster blog because it's going to be long and painful.