The Reader

It is hard to say if this movie is a coming of age story, a soft core porn flick or a a crime drama. The truth is it's a little of each. The movie opens in 1955 Berlin with a 15 year-old Michael Berg (David Kross) throwing up and being helped home by 36 year-old Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet). He is diagnosed with scarlet fever and spends the next few months in bed recovering. When he goes back to thank Hanna for her help, they begin an affair that lasts the summer, then she abruptly leaves him. Eight years later Berg attends a Nazi trial as part of a law school seminar where Hanna is accused of being a SS guard responsible for the deaths of over 300 Jews. As the trail plays out Berg realizes he has information that could influence the outcome, but refuses to reveal it. The story continues with the adult Berg's (Ralph Fiennes) relationship with Hanna and how it effects his life moving forward.

Many people were very surprised that Kate Winslet did not win the Academy award for this performance, and I agree she is amazing and it does seem like a major slight. Her character is complicated, you never really like her, but she is very interesting. You want things to work out for her, but then you are forced to remember she is a murderer, even if she was just following orders. After 50 years, it is impressive that this movie can still bring back the angst that Nazi trails generated and how the younger generation related to their elders who clearly were there. It brings up the still unanswered questions of what they saw and why they didn't do more.

Charlie Parker - Bird and Diz

Charlie Paker, or Bird as he was widely know, changed jazz like no other musician. The transformation from swing to bebop in the early '40's was basically his doing. He played faster and with more improvisational skill than anyone had before, revolutionizing jazz. Along with Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk he put out some of the most innovative music of the late 40's and the early 50's. While Parker's catalog is not as extensive as some of the other jazz greats, he does have a lot of reissues and prepacked compilations out there. One of the better ones is the remaster of Bird and Diz, which is a recording in 1950 with Monk on piano and Buddy Rich on drums (how much better would this have been with Max Roach!). Parker and Gillespie played together on many of their major recordings and this captures their skills and interplay perfectly. Sadly Parker was a heroin addict from an early age and it took a savage toll on his life, with stints in the mental hospital and finally losing his cabaret license in NY in 1953, making it nearly impossible for him to get a gig. He died in 1955 at the age of 34.

Kennedy Turns 70

Today one of our founders, David Kennedy turned 70 years old. Kennedy is one of the coolest people I have ever met, he is smart, has a wicked sense of humor, but is also very kind hearted. Unfortunately he retired just before I started working at W+K, so I have never worked with him, but he is still very involved with the pro bono work we do for the American Indian College Fund. The College Fund raises money to send Native Americans to tribal colleges that are on or near reservations, so they can not only get a degree but also keep tribal cultural and tradition at the core of their learning. Over the 18 years we have worked with them, Kennedy has been the creative director on every campaign. He grew up in Oklahoma and has a great love for Native American culture. For his birthday a tribal chief came and bestowed him with his final Indian name. As he explained it you get a name when you are born, another when you become a warrior and if you are lucky enough another if you become a chief. David's final name is totally unpronounceable to me, but I can tell you it means, one who has completed life's tasks. He was bestowed with a special blanket and a blessing, there was also a drum circle and traditional dancing. As a gift from the agency the charitable committee established a $50,000 endowed scholarship in Kennedy's name. With the average tuition around $900, that will help send a lot of people to school.

There's Ink Under that Sweater Set

In Portland you see normal looking girls, dressed in professional clothes like they are headed to work or in a sun dress headed off to class just like you would in any other city, except in Portland you realize that is not a print on their shirt sleeve it's an arm full of ink. It is amazing to me how many young women have tattoos, and I am not just talking about an ankle tat or one on the lower back. I am talking all up and down the arms and legs, while everything else about them looks like the girl next door. In the old days you expected this look from biker chicks or girls with purple hair, not your nurse practitioner. I bet it would be impossible to find a women in Portland between the ages of 20 and 35 that does not have some kind of tattoo.

The World As You Dream It - John Perkins

The World As You Dream It is not a book I would ordinarily pick up off the shelf. I read it because it was on the reading list for the trip to Ecuador and I enjoyed the author's earlier book Confessions of an Economic Hitman. This book is very different. It details the time Perkins spent living with the Shuar tribe in Ecuador. He explores the dream culture of the native people and how they live in harmony with their environment. Many of the customs of sacred rituals, healing ceremonies and other ancient arts are quite similar to what I experienced with the Ashuar on my trip.

Perkins has become very involved with the old world ways of healing and living in harmony with your environment because he was partly responsible for the damage many of the indigenous people in this part of the world have suffered. In his past life he was part of a large US company that exploited government contracts to strip the land and indenture the people of countries across the world in the name of economic progress. Whether you agree with his point of view or not, this book is still a compelling look into the lives of people that are very different from us. Perkins can be overly dramatic in his descriptions of some of the ceremonies, especially anything that involves a hallucinogenic plant, but he is a true believer and gets as close as any white person to the truth of how these people live. There is no doubt we could learn a lot from what most people in the north would call weird at best and "witch doctoring" at worst.

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue

It is hard to imagine jazz without Miles Davis and it is hard to imagine owning just one Miles Davis record. As Miles went, so went jazz. He started out as a devote of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie paying the emerging hard jazz sound called bebop. For several years he played as part of Bird's band before becoming a front man. During his early days he invented and popularized cool jazz, releasing his first record, the must own Birth of Cool. A recording contract with Columbia records spawned the must haves 'Round About Midnight and Miles Ahead. Following this, Davis began to experiment with modal playing, basing his improvisations on scales rather than chord changes. This led to his biggest recording, Kind of Blue, in 1959, a record that became a landmark in modern jazz and the most popular of Davis' career, selling over two million copies, unheard of for a jazz record. The last on the must have list is Bitches Brew, with this record Davis turned more overtly to a jazz-rock style. Though not conventional rock music, Davis' electrified sound attracted a non-jazz audience while putting off traditional jazz fans. Released in March 1970, it reached the pop Top 40 and became Davis' first certified gold record. Not bad for a heroin addict and the one of the angriest men to ever live.

Travel Day

Wednesday was a long day. We got up at 4:00 a.m. central time to catch a 6:45 a.m. flight to Houston. We got to the airport early in case there were long lines, but of course we flew right through and ended up waiting forever in the lounge. It's a five hour flight to Houston from Quito and they showed a couple of movies, Marley and Me and Yes Man. Neither of them were great movies, but at least Marley was a cute dog, Jim Carrey was just a dog. After Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I have come to expect a lot more of him than falling down and stupid faces. The one bright spot in Yes Man was Zooey Deschanel, who is too cute and funny to fall for Carey's lame character. When we got to Houston we had a four hour layover that was partially consumed with a trip to Pappadeux's restaurant for great gumbo and Cajun food. This has got to be some of the best airport food around. On the four and half hour flight from Houston to Portland we had satellite TV which was great, I watched the first half of the Cavs game and if I had been smart I could have found out who won American Idol on the east coast broadcast.

When I got back to Portland I couldn't help but feel that my trip to Ecuador had flown by. It was like I had bungee jumped into the rain forest; as soon as we got there and got used to the noises and the slower pace, we were snapped back to reality. That said, I think I learned a lot and there is no doubt that the Ashaur have as much, if not more, to teach us about how to live harmoniously with our surroundings as we have to teach them about running an Eco-lodge.

Tourist Day

Tuesday was our last full day in Ecuador and we did a few tourist things that were a lot of fun. The drive from Bannos to Quito takes about four hours if you drive it straight through, but we made a few stops along the way.

The first stop was in the town of Bannos. First we got a little of their world famous taffy, then we checked out the amazing church which happened to be holding a service. Along the walls of the church they have several large paintings of miracles performed by the Virgin of the Holy Water. She saved a man who fell from his horse into the river, a family from a house fire as well as several others. While we were in the church we saw a lot of signs talking about Jesus. Our guide told us this is because the church is worried too many people are praying to the Madonnas and they have forgotten about Jesus.

Our second stop was at a hacienda that was built in the 1600s. When the Spanish conquered Ecuador they divided the country up into several provinces and gave the conquistadors ownership over the land. Not only did they own all the land, they also enslaved the local people and took over all the natural resources. Several haciendas are still privately owned, and the descendants of the conquistadors are still some of the most influential people in the country, but the hacienda we visited is now a museum and all the land has been redistributed back to the people. The building and the gardens are beautiful. A couple of people on our trip had stayed there before and told us it is haunted. We didn't see any ghosts, but there was a strange vibe in the place. As pretty as it was and as nice as the private chapel and gardens were, it still had a gloomy feel about it.

Our third stop was at a large outdoor market when local craftspeople sell everything from sweaters and hats to blankets and crafts that are all hand-made. There were a lot of great things to choose from, so I bought Barbara a cute hat. The prices were so low I was thinking I should buy another suitcase and load it up with stuff that I could sell in the US for ten times as much.

From the market we drove into Quito and checked out the Capilla del Hombre (Chaple of Man), an art museum and monument designed by the famous Ecuadorian artist Oswaldo Guayasamín (1919-1999). If you have never heard of him, it may be because he was a good friend of Fidel Castro and an ardent critic of US policies. The Quito-born artist is best known for his paintings depicting Andean people, often chillingly and in dark colors. He exposed racism, poverty, political oppression, and class division; common themes throughout the Andes. His work reflected the misery and pain that many people around the world had to experience in the 20th century. He spoke out often against the US and other governments. His work was exhibited around the world. A day of national strikes occurred at his death by indigenous people, who he spent his life supporting. If you are in Quito this is a must see, our only disappointment was that the "eternal flame" was not lit because of some construction that was going on.

Our final stop of the day was Quito's old town. This is the original part of the city that was built in the 1600s. It is home to several amazing churches as well as the President's residence and offices, a couple of five star hotels and some very impressive statues. Unfortunately it was dark by the time we got there and most of the buildings were already closed, but it was still great to get to walk around and see it. This area is going through a major revival and many of the old buildings are being rehabbed and the government is encouraging people to move back there, however there is one major obstacle, no public transportation and very narrow streets make for a major traffic problem.

Leaving the Rainforest

Monday morning began with a brisk paddle up the river in a kayak. We were hoping to see fresh water pink dolphins, but unfortunately they did not show up. Instead we got a good upper body workout. The trip back was great as the tide was so strong we did not have to paddle.

When we got back to the lodge, we got the good news that we would be able to fly out that day. It had been raining quite heavily and we were concerned that the runway would be too muddy to land a plane. Luckily it had dried out enough and the planes were flying. Before we left the lodge we got one more treat. Celistino gave us a demonstration on how to use a blowgun. He set up a target about 30 feet away and hit the bulls eye pretty consistently. I hit the target but I did not get it inside the rings, however I did better than most of the others how came up short.

The flight back was uneventful. The runway was still pretty wet so it made for a bouncy take off, but once we got airborne and got the a/c going it was manageable. The views from the plane were amazing. The runway we took off from looked so small when we were up in the air. Also the river is really brown due to all the sediment it carries.

Once we landed we loaded up in the bus and headed to Bannos, a little town about an hour away famous for great spas and making taffy . We spent the night at one of those spas up in the mountains where they had several pools with the water heated by the volcano. This spa was one of the prettier places I have ever been. We sat out in one of he pools enjoying a beer and the excellent views as the clouds rolled in around us. Within an hour we were totally fogged in. Dinner that night was great, but even better was the first hot shower I had had in several days.

Dream Interpretation

Saturday night was rough, between the rooster crowing and the animals sniffing around the tent, I did not get much sleep. Strangely I still felt quite refreshed when I woke up. We had a nice breakfast although it was a little damp from a small rain shower. After we ate the shaman came over and offered to help interpret any dreams or visions people had during the night. It was a slow process as he did not speak English, so everything had to be translated into Spanish then into Achuar and back again. Some of the visions were pretty wild and engendered long conversations between the shaman and our guide Celistino, but the interpretations were usually very short and positive. One person told of seeing two men with skulls for heads while on a boat. When he approached them they offered him a skull. The shaman talked to all of the Ashuar man gathered around him for several minutes about this and then told us, "you'll go on a journey where you will find a skull." We were all sure there was something he wasn't telling us. Early in the evening, I had heard a strange noise that sounded like the shaman was throwing up. Turns out there were people from around the area that had come for healing. As part of the healing, the shaman would suck on the afflicted area then spit, thus removing whatever was ailing them.
Once we were all done with our dreams and visions, the shaman told us an interesting story. Usually they don't talk about their visions, as they believe them to be intensely personal, but this one was so strange to them that they wanted us to know about it. Once we had all gone to bed the shaman and Celistino were still sitting up when they heard the leaves they use for cleansing russelling around. They looked over and saw a small person taking the leaves. The shaman shouted, "why are you stealing my leaves" and the little person took off running into the forest. There was a lot of debate about what this meant. The shaman took ayahuasca, but Celistino did not (we are not 100% sure about this) and they both saw the little person. The shaman was very upset about it that night, but the next day he said he thought there was a powerful force in our group and thought one of us had special powers.

After the shaman was done we had a very interesting cultural exchange. Several people from the community came and sang traditional songs. All the women sang about missing their men or wishing them well in battle and the one man who sang performed a traditional hunting song. Most of the women were very shy, but the man was amazing. Turns out his good singing voice paid off as he is also the best hunter in the community. After the singing, the women laid out crafts that we could buy. There were 100s of beaded bracelets and necklaces, headbands, bowls and a very rare blowgun which one of our group bought (no easy task to get that home). I will say this about the Ashuar, they are savvy businesspeople. The stuff they were selling was not cheap compared to other things I had seen in Ecuador and they negotiated hard on the prices, still you did not feel bad about giving them the money.

Once the business was done, we said our goodbyes and headed back to the lodge. On the way, we made a quick stop at the great hunters house so he could show us the boat he was building. The dugouts are made from one piece of wood. In this case our host had found a tree about a mile from home, cut it down and made the rough outline of the boat before carrying it back to his house, all in about eight hours (the Ashuar all wear watches, but the don't seem to care too much about time). We got to use his primitive tool to do some of the finish work, but I think ended up making more work for him to fix it. Once he boat is all shaped, the fire it to make it waterproof. By the way, the Ashuar word for canoe is canoe.

When we got back to the lodge, we ate lunch, then I had one of the best showers of my life and fell asleep in about 30 seconds. Later that afternoon I did the self guided tour at the lodge which was about a mile trek with signs explaining different plants and trees. I also enjoyed a cold beer with a traditional Ashuar dinner and went to bed pretty early. There is not a lot to do after it gets dark in the rain forest.

A Night In An Aschuar Community

The day began with an early morning trip up the river to a clay lick where we saw an amazing array of birds. It should be pointed out that it is hard to see wild life in this part of the rain forest as it is a hunting ground for the Aschuar, so the animals are wise to humans. After that we headed back to the lodge to get ready for our hike to the Aschuar community. As part of the trip we got to spend the night in the community and witness a traditional healing ceremony. The Aschuar are a dream culture, they use their dreams and powerful teaching plants to guide their actions. Several years ago they started to have dreams that something bad was going to happen and sure enough the big oil companies came snooping around trying to get lease rights on their land (the Aschuar own over two million acres of rain forest in Ecuador). The Aschuar had witnessed the damage the oil companies had done in the north, so they decided to do everything the could to keep them out. Part of the plan is running this lodge to raise money, so they don't have to give in to the oil money.

The Aschuar community was a five hour hike through the rain forest. We were lead by our Aschuar guide Celistino. He was a great guy, he spoke fluent Spanish (as well as Aschuar) and was also learning English. The rain forest is an amazing place. Where the canopy is high it is easy to hike through as the brush below is thin due to lack of sunlight. When a large tree falls, it allows all the underbrush to get sunlight and grow really thick. This is where Celistino's machete came in handy as he cleared us a path. Again you don't see a lot of animals in the rain forest due to the hunting, but there are a lot of interesting insects if you look closely. After a long hike we came upon the first Aschuar house in the community. The first thing you notice is that the houses have no walls. They are open air and there is sometimes an interior wall that separates the women's part of the house and the kitchen. Another thing is that they always have a fire burning inside. They take three long logs and they push them into the middle of a flame as they burn down. The fire serves multiple purposes, one is that the smoke helps waterproof the thatched roof and it also allows the Aschuar to communicate with their ancestors.

We were greeted warmly by the community and invited to one of the houses that was big enough to hold us all in the common area. There was a couple of school buildings and a soccer field in the village and all the houses were spread out around the central area. We spent the afternoon getting our tents set up and chatting with some of the men in the community. When you enter an Aschuar house, you are immediately offered checha, a drink made by the women of the house. They chew a root plant found in the rain forest and spit into a big bowl. They add water and as it ferments it turns into something like beer without the carbonation. The bowl I got smelled so bad I could not drink it, but one of the guys who was with it drank down two bowls right away. He didn't feel so good later when we told him how it was made. As it got dark we ate a traditional dinner and some of the group prepared to take ayahuasca, a combination of plants that produces a hallucinogenic effect including visions that the Aschuar believe can help guide your future. The ayahuasca is blessed by a shaman and he oversees the people who take it. Usually people who take ayahuasca throw up within 45 minutes of taking it, but no one in our group did for over three hours. Once everyone was tucked away in their tents, we tried to sleep, but there are a lot of animals snooping around and making noises, so it was hard to stay asleep very long. I had hoped to sleep outside under the stars, but it rained most of the night so I had to stick in the tent. Then the ultimate insult, a rooster started crowing at about 3:00 AM and kept it up for about four hours. It was a long night.

Into The Rainforest

This is the plane we flew to get to the lodge on the rainforest. It was about an hour flight and we landed on a dirt runway in a clearing in the trees. The lodge is great. So far we went on an amazing hike in the forest, then we swam back to the pier (really the tide was so fast it carried us, we just had to steer). The food is very nice and there is even a bar. At night it is amazingly dark, and you can see millions of stars. It is pretty hot during the day, but cooling off a little at night. Just trying to stay hydrated.

Made it to Ecuador

Got in late tonight, so we have not seen a lot of the place yet. Internet service is very sketchy so I am not sure how much I will be able to post. The hotel we are staying at in Quito is nice, but no hot water in the room. Tomorrow we will load up in a bus for a four hour drive to Shell which is only 95 miles, then take a small plane onto the Amazon.

Bob Schneider - Aladin Theater - May 11th

Austin great Bob Schneider played the Aladdin Theater in Portland last night to a packed out crowd. This is only the second time I have seen him live and the first time was a solo acoustic show, so this was quite a different experience with his band. The solo show was in turn dark and funny, with a lot of rambling between songs. This show as all go. There was a lot of dancing and a wide range of genres explored from blues to mamba. Many of the songs were unrecognizable from his solo records as the band reworks them constantly and rarely plays the same composition twice. There was very little chat from Bob, which I have to say was a disappointment. He made a few cracks about how well people dress in Portland and how he doesn't like blues music, but that was about it. Much more buttoned up than I thought he would be. I have to say the band was tight, they play off each other well. Unfortunately I can't remember his name, but the the guy who plays the trumpet, sousaphone, and harmonica is amazing.

To prove that Portland is small town, when we walked down to the front of the stage, I was surrounded by the entire Nike Golf executive staff, from the President to the CFO. I look forward to finding out how they became Bob fans.

Team Nike

After working at W+K for 14 years and having the Nike mantra beat into my brain for so long, it is funny when I see something that doesn't fit the brand ideal. Old, overweight, or scary drugged out people in Nike t-shirts usually give me a moment of pause as they are so different from anyone we would put in a commercial. As I was walking to work today I saw this group of kids and one of them had a sweat shirt on that said, "Team Nike." If this is Team Nike, the company is in bad shape. It also made me think that childhood obesity really is a bigger problem than I ever realised. It would be great if we could get all these kids into a training program and help them get in better shape.

Hair Puller

This woman sat and pulled her hair out from downtown to 39th street. I guess it's a good thing she has a lot of of it, as she just kept pulling and pulling. From both sides and the back, she'd pull out a few hairs each time then go back to tugging. I had to write this so I wouldn't have to see her doing it. I think her two kids, who talked and asked questions the entire trip, are driving her insane.

John Coltrane - A Love Supreme

John Coltrane, A Love Supreme, one of the most iconic jazz records there is. Coltrane made his name playing with Miles Davis, then with Monk and then back to Davis. His heroin addiction got him fired a lot, but when he finally got it together, he launched an amazing, yet short solo career. You can find Coltrane on all the best Davis records and many of Monk and Dizzy's best. A Love Supreme is considered by most to be Coltrane's best record. It was released a few years before he died at 40 from liver cancer. It is a blend of traditional and free jazz that should how great he was and how inventive he could be. While few musicians copied Coltrane, he was a huge influence by showing people where they could go if they were willing to suspend the rules. When Coltrane died, he left a huge catalog of unreleased material, which accounts for the many records that have come out posthumously. There are also many reissues and repackagings that followed. if you want to dive deeper into the catalog, check out Giant Steps and My Favorite Things.

Confessions of an Economic Hitman - John Perkins

Would America purposely lend third world countries so much money that they could never repay it, then once they have them over the barrel, make them do our bidding? This is the premise of John Perkins' book Confessions of an Economic Hitman, in short, he is calling the US a global mafia don.

Perkins worked for Main, a large US company very similar to Bechtel and Hailbutron where he was a self-proclaimed economic hitman. His job was to go into countries like Ecuador, Iraq, or Panama and asses what it would take to industrialize these countries with modern power grids, roads, water treatment plants, etc. Once he gave his assessment of what the country needed to generate enough electricity for everyone in the country to run their TVs, etc. the US and the World Bank would offer up huge loans to spur these third world countries into the modern world. Only catch is, you have to hire US companies to do all the work. Also, the prices were hugely inflated and of course the countries really did not have the means to pay off the loans in the first place. It is at this point that the US government uses its new found leverage to demand the countries leaders keep America's interests top of mind. So if we want to put an air force base in your country, you won't object. If we need more oil from you, you'll open the pipeline. If we want your vote in the United Nations, we get it. And if you don't play along, you could disappear or die in a mysterious plane crash (ala Omar Torrijos, former President of Panama). If they can't get rid of you, then you get invaded, see Panama by GWH Bush and Iraq by GW Bush. Once you have been invaded, a new regime is installed that is more favorable to the US and a large US company, like Haliburton, gets a no bid contract to rebuild the country (or they could just help you kill your dad like the Shah of Iran).

Pretty dark and sinister stuff. If you are a conspiracy theorist you will love this book. If you are a right wing, industrialist you won't. Where this book is really powerful is when it gets you to question some of the underlying assumptions of the capitalist economy. For example, is industrialisation always progress? Is bigger is always better? Can we enjoy a great quality of life without destroying the lives of others? And finally you realise that America may have done some stuff over the years, that people told us was in our national interest, but made the rest of the world righteously mad.

I am Oregonian

This is a TV spot we just made to celebrate Oregon's 150th anniversary as a state. Below is the blog entry from one of the creative folks who helped develop the commercial.

Hi. I’m Dani. I work at Wieden+Kennedy, and quite a while ago, I designed the Oregon 150 logo. W+K has been helping the Oregon 150 organization with their sesquicentennial needs for a while now and when Travel Oregon partnered with OR150 and asked us to do a TV commercial for it, we were super pleased. To be honest, I thought it was an awesome opportunity to a.) tour around this gorgeous state of ours(!) and b.) not sit at my desk for a little while - also while touring around this gorgeous state of ours! I was joined on this filming journey by Melanie Fedunok, our producer, who seemingly effortlessly staged this whole thing, which, was no easy task. Here’s why:

Due to timing, we filmed it in March, which, as most Oregonians know, is not the least rainy month we have. Somehow, Melanie made sure we had NO RAIN on all 5 days of filming. Now, I’m not going to say it wasn’t c-c-c-cold filming with 3 out of 4 windows rolled down. I am also not going to say that maybe, just maybe Melanie did a non-rain dance every morning before the rest of us got up. If she didn’t, I don’t know how that happened.

We had to rig up a fake rear view mirror to film into. We couldn’t film into the actual rear view of the car we were driving because we couldn’t get the right angle of the yellow lines if we did that – at least not if we wanted to stay on the road. So we had to find someone who could rig up a mirror and camera on the outside of a car. Enter Reed Harkness, a very talented local filmmaker. He was amazing, solving not only the rear view rig, but he also drove the car while running the camera!

Getting those yellow lines. That was the toughest part I think. There were plenty of gorgeous places that just either didn’t have yellow lines in the road when we wanted to shoot, or well, no shoulder; we had to hug the very edge of the road to get the lines to well, line up. And Reed was a trooper through it all. I do wonder if he’s gotten used to driving like normal again yet; by the end of our trip, Reed would find himself drifting to the outside of our lane and going 30 miles an hour, no matter where we were. Which was fine in most places except maybe when it was time to go home via highway.

Fake Baby Guy Update

I saw the guy who carries the fake baby out in the real world last week, so we now know that he exists outside the bus. I was at lunch with a few people from work and they did not seem as interested in him as I had hoped. It took them a while to see that he is indeed carrying a fake baby, and I am not sure that they believed me that he carries it everywhere. Also, he might not seem so strange wandering around among the homeless folks in China Town as he does on the bus.

Wheelchairs in Portland

The summer I interned for Houston Metro Transit there was a lot of debate about whether all buses should be wheelchair accessible or if people in wheelchairs should get a special on-call disabled bus service that takes them door-to-door. At first I thought, who wouldn't want their own chauffeur service, but the overwhelming response from people in wheelchairs was they wanted to be part of the regular bus service. I have to say I understand that people want to be a regular functioning member of society and it is pretty amazing how well people get around in wheel chairs, but give up door-to-door service?

Later that year a law passed to make all buses wheel chair accessible and I didn't think much of it as I rode the bus in Houston and then in LA. It wasn't until I moved to Portland and visited Chicago in the winter that I thought the wheelchair advocates got it wrong. I saw a guy in a wheelchair get on the bus today and he was soaking. It occurred to me it's like driving around in a convertible that you can never put the top up. Add the snow and ice and all of a sudden a wheelchair becomes a pretty major challenge. So hats off to this guy for making it downtown today. If I were him I would have been lobbying for the door-to-door bus pick up.

Frost/Nixon

I don't really remember the Frost/Nixon interviews as I was only 12 years old when they first aired, but I do remember that they were a big deal and that something important happened. As we all know Richard Nixon resigned the Presidency, shortly after being reelected to a second term, to avoid the possibility of impeachment and even jail time for covering up the Watergate break in. After his resignation, he secluded himself in his home on the California coast and we didn't hear much from him for a few years. Then after laying low for a while, he began to emerge giving speeches and making appearances for whatever he could get someone to contribute to his coffers. His famous agent Swifty Lazar got him a great book deal, paying out millions and several people were pursuing a TV interview. One of the major networks had an offer of $300,000 on the table, but Lazar steered Nixon to a little known Australian talk show host that they thought would be a push over and also they could bilk more money out of.

Frost was know as a playboy and a lightweight. He was an entertainer, not a journalist, so the network newsmen had a field day when Nixon committed to do the interview with him. Most troubling of all was the fact that Frost would have to get syndication for the interviews and sell a lot of advertising to cover the costs of six hours of TV as he had no network backing him. The rumor was that Frost had to finance a large part of the production out of his own pocket.

Once they got started filming there were ground rules set about what they could and could not talk about that had to be followed. Watergate was only supposed to be 25% of the interview. Nixon was also a master at aversion. He strung out his answers and killed time, frustrating Frost and keeping any substance out of the interview. It wasn't until the last day of the interviews that the major breakthrough happened. Nixon caved. It was amazing. He admitted he lied, he admitted he covered up the break-in and he apologized to the American people for defying their trust. Some how Frost had broken through and gotten what every reporter (and angry liberal) in America had wanted. After the interview, Frost went back to being a talk show host and playboy and Nixon went back to seclusion in Southern California.

Portland Center Stage's performance of Frost/Nixon was riveting. Bill Christ is very convincing as Nixon and David Townsend is amazing as Frost. The sparse stage gives you just enough to make the story move along and the narrators keep you up to speed on the story. This is the best performance I seen so far at PCS.

Frost/Nixon runs April 14th-May 10th on Portland Center Stage's main stage. It is directed by Rose Riordan and written by Peter Morgan. It runs one hour and forty five minutes with no intermission.

Thelonious Monk - Straight, No Chaser

When I was in college, one of my professors gave us an extra credit question on a test: Who is the greatest jazz musician Charlie Parker or Louie Armstrong? I chose Bird, because I am a huge bop fan and while I love Satchmo, I would rather listen to Miles, Coltrane, or Monk any time. The professor did not agree and we all wasted half an hour arguing over it during the next class. Twenty years later, I am sticking to my guns. The first of the jazz classics I would like to offer up is Thelonious Monk's Straight, No Chaser. The title track is one of my favorite Monk songs and it has become a standard. I know Monk is considered a legend in the jazz world, but it was interesting to read that he was practically ignored when he started out in 1947. It wasn't until the 1960's that his music became popular and he started to sell a lot of records. If you want to dive a little deeper into the Monk catalog (there are close to 100 records in his discography) you should also check out Brilliant Corners and Monk's Dream.