Day thirteen: Portland

Though tummies were readied by talk the night before of a cheap, good breakfast and almost mythically spunktacular Bloody Marys at some place in nearby Arcata, a bunch of Budweiser after the show ended up getting in the way of an early start today. Fox, ever the taskmaster when it comes to being on time to venues, single-handedly ruins Christmas in April by declaring an immediate departure shortly after wake-up. No Bloody Mary-stop to be had; no fantastically cheap breakfast to be enjoyed. Instead, a lunch stop happens at a Mexican place in Crescent City that rivals Taco John’s (see Day Two) for the title of Shittiest Mexican Food on Tour.

Sniff.

Una lágrima.

:*(

As the van of gas and abdominal pain nears the Oregon state line, it begins to rain. Oregon, it seems, is a very wet (and green) state, and it takes a lot of rain to get it that wet (and green).

One consolation following the dismal lunch is the a-fucking-mazingly gorgeous ride northeast on Highway 199 through the Smith River National Recreation Area. The highway wends its way along the eponymous Smith River, which is both clear and deep (almost mini golf-like) blue at the same time. Mystifying.

Due to the lack of pictures of tonight’s show—and in view of the fact that everyone really likes picture-dotted blogs more than those composed of just a solid masse of text—here are some photos of the area, stolen from the Internet:




Before long, our boys really do reach Oregon and a massive sigh of relief is heard escaping from Fox’s skinny chest as gas prices drop 30 cents a gallon. The ho-hum highway town of Grant’s Pass is where the van hits I-5 and its stride and, up and down the interminable hills of southern and central Oregon, makes its way steadily north.

The bridges and river and buildings of Portland appear sooner than expected, leaving our boys ample time to get lost trying to find the Towne Lounge. The Lounge is part of a former mortuary and plays sort of hard to get vis-à-vis the directions on hand. Eventually, though, our group arrives, though not before noticing an ominous grinding sound coming from Little Bo Van’s brakes.


The lineup tonight consists of Wax Fingers (Portland), Low Red Land (San Francisco), His Mis (Twin Cities – duh) and Ferocious Eagle (Portland), in that order. The show is a very good one, musically, and the legal in-bar smoking and high level of interest in the merch add to the night. As usual, our transcendental tricksters’ sound dominates the small space. Somewhere in Portland, a baby bursts into tears of speechless wonder.

After the show, the van o’ vans makes the requisite beer stop on the way to the apartment belonging to the amusingly inebriated singer of Wax Fingers, his girlfriend, and their dog and cat. A few Tecates, surprisingly, still stand unopened as the night ends, a testimony, perhaps, to the hard drive that day, the hard life of the touring musician or the hard luck of an impending early morning brake job.

-Miles