Oh Dog, you Sleuth!

I was all prepared to be, uh… creative and write a story that incorporated all of these images, but I just couldn’t sit on them for another second. Steve found these abandoned at the bus stop last week!!! What a find! Most had the year ‘1980′ stamped on them, which makes sense. Those rich Ektachrome colors really hold up. I can’t tell which one is my favorite anymore. I like the guy who looks like Russell Crowe and choking. And I want to believe that the second image was shot at Farrells.

Since I have no photos to put up today, I’ll be even more boring than usual and tell you about this dream I had last night:
So it’s an episode of Melrose Place, but it’s really too lighthearted and whimsical in tone. More like an episode of Partners In Crime or a zanier Moonlighting. And I’m a character in it. Sydney, Matt and I are in formal wear as a museum party where some priceless star of India-type diamond is on display and we’re trying to steal it before Michael and Kimberly do (kinda the plot of National Treasure when you think about it). Anyway, it was so much fun. And at one point we’re being chased with full-blown wackiness ensuing and I stumble over the hem of Syd’s red evening gown and the diamond lands in the punch bowl and we all land on the floor and we’re laughing, laughing, laughing.

I feel like if my tv looked like this, everything I watched on it would seem great.

Even though it looks like the perfect Hollywood serial killer’s house, this is where the family (pictured below) lived.

On Sunday, I went to an estate sale in the neighborhood and picked up these slides. It was from a house where the same family had lived for the last fifty years. From outside, the place looked like a standard Portland four-square. But it was crazy inside. In the early 1950s, the last owners removed a lot of the wallpaper (which was also on the ceilings) from the 1920s. All the glue remained there forever and it turned this deep burnished shade of yellow because everyone in the family chain smoked in the house for the next fifty-five years. It made me think about my own procrastination in home remodeling and whether I could sustain it for fifty years.
Sometimes, at estate sales, you can really see how even in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood like this, there are still old people living in a time warp of the 1950s. I don’t know if I’ve noticed this more here than anywhere else because Portland never went through a ‘white flight’ or other extreme real estate upheavals.
Anyway, these slides tell a very different story than the house does today. I think they are all from the late 70’s to early 80’s because a few of them actually had the dates written on them (a good idea). I also took some pictures of the house, but I haven’t developed them yet.

A birthday party at Farrell’s!!!

If Patrick and Kelly had a baby, I think this is how it would dress.

All these were taken by Kim, who tells me what’s really going on in New Orleans.

Life In New Orleans has some interesting pictures up and photographer, Chris Jordan shot some really stunning aftermath images around town.

Took another crack at Friendster tonight thinking I’d find some familiar faces from school if I searched ‘born in New Orleans’. I came up with nothing when I tried it last year, which I thought was really strange. Naturally, I was hoping I’d see any (it doesn’t matter) guy I went to Brother Martin high school with and be scandalized that he was ‘looking for men’.

I did find myself vividly remembering hanging out at Borsodi’s coffee shop one time when I was in high school and being shocked to see my childhood piano teacher there on a date.

Above ground at the Hollywood Theater.

These ladies are The Paper Dolls, a trio from San Francisco and they are insanely cute. Their repetoire included old Hawiian ukelele tunes as well as covers of Prince and a Pretenders cover. They also had a song that served double duty as the biography of the band. Jeremy met them at Bryan’s party on Friday night.

Behind the scenes at The Hollywood Theater. I’ll have some ‘in front of the scenes’ stuff tomorrow.

I watched the local news tonight for the second time since I’ve lived here. They had a story about a girl in Clackamas who was home alone and a stranger knocked on the door. The teenager told the guy she was alone, after which he tried to grab her. But she broke loose and locked the door. End of story. But there was a re-enactment! And the girl played herself! I loved it. They also showed that hilarious clip of Ray Nagin pontificating on how to make chocolate.

I’ve been wanting to photograph this restaurant since I moved here. It’s really beautiful but small on the inside.

Found in the street, by Jeremy:

With all this rain and hours of blue light every day, it was inevitable I should turn back to Elliott Smith, who I’ve been listening to non-stop lately. I’ve been reading Elliott Smith and the Big Nothing, which came out last year. I’ve been enjoying it and was shocked to realize ‘Roman Candle’ was recorded only a few blocks away in a basement on Taylor Street. Or that he lived in Ladd’s Addition and hung out with the band Quasi, who also used to live close by on 37th and Hawthorne. Interesting, at least to me. I tracked down the author on Friendster in hopes of getting the specific addresses, so I can start making my own Portland star maps. Other ES overlap was My Father’s Place, The Galaxy and even O’Connors in Brooklyn. I wonder what he would have thought of the terrible Doug Fir.