Cell Phone Abuse

Why is it that the worse a person's life is going the louder they talk on the cell phone. You never hear anyone say, "I just got engaged" or "I won a million dollars" on the cell phone, mostly you hear people talking about intimate medical issues or how bad work is going. For the most part people on the bus seem to be respectful when using their cell phone. They keep the call short or the cover their mouth with their hand when they speak. You do get the occasional meth head whining about how he lost his job because he was high for three days and forgot to call in sick, but usually not a big deal. Today was a new experience. A guy sitting right behind me yelled into the phone the entire trip. The weird thing is I think he was happy. I can't say for sure because he was speaking French with a heavy African accent, but he laughed a lot which makes me think he may have been conveying good news. He also talked a lot. It's a 30 minute ride into town and I didn't hear him breathe once. I suspect he was saying, "Hi my is Algeen and I am a prince from Nigeria. I need to transfer $5 million into my US account and if you are willing to hold the money for a week I will give you $50,000, all I need is a $5,000 deposit..."

The Doors - The Doors

You have to have a Doors record in your collection, the question is which one. I recommend their debut The Doors, probably the best debut record of all time. It has three of their all time best songs: "Break on Through (to the other side)," "Light My Fire" and the song that defines the band, "The End." I, of course, was not hip to The Doors the first time around. I bought in when they got big again in the 80's. I'll never forget the Rolling Stone magazine with Jim Morrison on the cover and the headline, "He's hot, he's sexy, he's dead." That about summed it up. The hottest band in the country at the time had not played together in years and the lead sing was dead. When you consider all the crazy stuff they got into when he was alive, I guess this makes sense. Like all wanne be hipster kids of my era I read, No One Here Gets Out Alive, the unauthorized biography of Jim Morrison; I wore my Doors concert tee; and when I was in Paris I made the trip to Père Lachaise cemetery to see his grave site. I'm still a fan.

Black Rabbit Restaurant and Bar at McMenamins Edgefield

We were out at McMenamins Edgefield playing the par 3 golf course yesterday when we decided to stay for dinner at the Black Rabbit Restaurant. We hadn't eaten there for several years and I had a little trepidation as I didn't remember it being that great. Those fears were quickly eased with a couple of good appetizers. The calamari and the bruscetta were both delicious. The tomatoes were so fresh and ripe that they really made the dish. The entrees were equally good, we had the fried chicken special and the flat iron steak. Both were huge portions, with plenty of food to take home. A lot of the vegetables are grown on the property which used to be a farm. Not just any farm, but the poor house farm. Debtors and indigents were sentenced to time at Edgefield where they worked on the farm growing their own food, in the hopes that is would teach them to be good contributing members of society. In the 1950's the building was converted to an old folks home. The in the 1980s it was abandoned and became dilapidated. The McMenamin brothers bought it in the early 1990's for $300,000 and put $3 million into fixing it up. When they opened there was the restaurant, a brewery, a winery, a movie theater and a dozen or so guest rooms (these are fun but modest with shared bathrooms). Since they opened they have added two par 3 golf courses, one is 12 holes, the other 20 holes; a wedding reception room; and an area where you can watch concerts on the side of the hill. We have seen Lyle Lovett there a couple of times and both shows were great.

Obviously there is a lot more to do at Edgefield than just eat at the Black Rabbit. In fact, I would strongly suggest heading out there around 5:00 PM on a summer night, and hitting the golf course before dinner. You can get around the 20 hole course in a couple of hours (less if it's not crowded). All the holes are less than 100 yards long, most around 60 yards, so you only need a wedge and a putter, which you can rent for $2 each. You should bring a few extra golf balls, cause if you don't hit them straight you'll end up in the blackberry bushes with a lost ball. Of course the best part is the beer cart that comes around so you can load up on one of McMenamins great beers. We recommend mixing the Terminator stout with the Ruby to make a Rubinator. You'll see there is quite a cult following at this course. People who have never played a real course, have played Edgefield hundreds of times and are really good.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

I am sad to say When You Are Engulfed in Flames is not the best David Sedaris book ever. Most of the stories are based on things that have happened in the recent past and they are just not was funny as the stories he tells of his family growing up. Perhaps he has mined all he can from that vein and this is the end of Sedaris. I hope not and I think the last, and by far the longest, story in the book gave me hope. "Smoking Section" is a great play by play account of the effort to quit smoking. Sedaris seems to have read every self help book that is available on how to quit, then decided to throw each maximum a curve. One recommendation is to change your environment, try to get away from the places you smoke most. For many this would mean cutting out the neighborhood tavern. Sedaris on the other hand took a month long trip to Japan, where smoking is the national pastime. The story is sprinkled with funny observations of Japan and his struggle to learn the language while going through some powerful cigarette cravings. Maybe he should have stretched this out into an entire book.

Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

I had heard Lucinda Williams on the radio a lot in Houston when I was younger, but for some reason Car Wheels is the first record of hers I bought. These are amazing, simple and perfectly composed songs. "Greenville" and "Lake Charles" are two of my all-time favorites. I have read that it took six years to make this record, which seems strange when you hear it. I somehow imagine her getting in the studio and recording every song in one take. I know this is a record that got a lot of critical acclaim, but in this case I have to agree with the hype, one of the best records of the 90's and one you need in your collection.

Running for the Bus

I am more likely to run for the bus in the evening than I am in the morning. The reason is that the bus comes by more often in the morning, so you don't feel the need to run. In the evening, if you miss the bus it could be 20-30 minutes to wait for another one. That said, the bus is more likely to stop for you in the morning if you are not at the stop.

In the morning I have a short walk to and from the bus stop. I walk down my street, then down a set of stairs to Belmont where the bus stops about 150 yards down the street. You have to be on Belmont if you want to catch the bus, there is no way you can run fast enough to catch it if you're on the stairs. In the evening, I walk up 12th to Salmon to catch the bus home, about a 10-15 minute walk. If you are about a block from Salmon and you see the bus, you can catch it if you run fast and you get a little lucky with the light. The problem is the bus drivers won't stop for you if you don't make it to the stop. Yesterday I saw the number 15 approaching as I was coming up 12th (you need to make sure it's your bus, you don't want to run for the wrong bus!) and I took off after it. I made it to the stop just as the light changed but the bus took off. I was pissed because I know the bus driver saw me. I kept after him and caught him at the next stop about a block and a half away. When I go on the bus a few people clapped and one guy said, "nice sprint." I was happy to make the bus, but it was a pretty sweaty ride home.

Battle with the Bike

They say driving a bus is one of the most stressful jobs in the country. Some psychologists put together a matrix that showed the higher your responsibility and the lower your control at your job, the more stressed you were. Bus drivers have a lot of responsibility, they have to keep a few 1000 people safe every day as they drive them around. But they have very little control over their job as the route and the time they have to get around is all dictated by a transit planner. So I was not surprised to see the bus driver go off the other day when someone defied his one little piece of control, the yield sign. I was surprised however that it was a cyclist that was ready to get into a fight with the bus.

When the bus signals that he is leaving the bus stop there is a yield sign that flashes. The law says you must stop and let him out. The other day a cyclist did what most cars do and ignored the yield sign, trying to get around the bus before he could leave. When the bus pulled out the cyclist smacked the bus and yelled at the driver. Usually that is the end of the story, however in a 20 year bus riding first I saw the bus driver stop the bus and go off on the cyclist about how she had broken the law and almost got herself killed. I have to say I was totally with the driver on this one. Too many cyclists disobey traffic laws and then get pissed at drivers when they almost get killed. Today I saw the same cyclist pull up behind the bus and stop. Hopefully she has learned a lesson.

Run DMC - Raising Hell

Obviously Run DMC's take on Walk this Way is the song that blew this record up for white people. You couldn't watch MTV for more than 10 minutes without seeing the video. It was truly the biggest cross-over rap hit there had been up until that time. I would even go as far as to say that this is the record that put rap on mainstream radio. It also changed the way rap had sounded up until then, with the heavy guitars it was a fusion of rock and rap. Walk is not the only game changing song on this record. My Adidas was the beginning of rappers featuring the brands the loved in their songs. Peter Piper, It's Tricky and Proud to be Black have all been endlessly copied, sampled and stolen. This is important record that is also still fun to listen to.

There's no accident too small for paperwork

Ever wonder what happens if the bus gets hit while you are riding it? You get to get off and wait for the next one. Turns out they have to fill out a report no matter how small the accident. Today on the bus, a van clipped the mirror and while it didn't seem like a big deal to me the bus driver went off. He started yelling at the van and then he got up to ask us if we saw what happened, but it was so subtle no one saw a thing. For a moment I felt like we were all denying it happened, but truly a bus getting hit on the mirror doesn't really rock the boat. The good news is we were already downtown so I didn't have to walk too far to work.

Portishead - Dummy

Again this is a band that you should own all their records, which will not set you back too much as they only have three. Speaking of three, Third is the name of their first record in over 10 years and it is an instant classic. But back to the recommendation at hand. If you only have one Portishead record in your collection, it should be Dummy. Beth Gibbons has an amazing voice which is layered over dark, mysterious melodies like an instrument. She sounds like she is in real pain, some kind of futuristic soul singer for the rave generation.

The Human Race

About 30 or so people showed up on Sunday morning to participate in the W+K version of the Human Race. If you haven't heard of it, the idea was to get 1 million people around the world to participate in a 10K run on the same day. There were 26 official race sites, including New York, Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland in the US. The hope was to spur some competition between countries to see who could register the most runners, have the fastest time, etc. Looks like Portland won the US with an average of 58:33, but Vancouver B.C. edged us out for the North America overall win. I am sure the Portland times were lowered by all the fast people at Nike who hosted a race on campus. It looks like London was the fastest of all the host cities. I should move to Austin or Istanbul, whose average times were closer to my finishing time of 1:28:07, not very impressive. I haven't seen all our times, but at least I was not in last place, I beat Dan Wieden by 1:30! Even though I didn't set any records, it was fun to get out there and get running again.