As you may have heard, OurPDX had our one-year birthday party Friday night. Oh the humanity!
The events at Green Dragon are well documented. It was a pleasure to meet you all, to put names to faces. I even ran into an old neighbor from the 1980s. (Hi Sam!) It was nice of Beer and Blog to share their space with us. Did anyone mention the spectacular cake? If I don’t double my exercise regimen I’ll be looking like Alfred Hitchcock soon.
With all the imbibing, it was suggested that we eat sometime during the evening. After all the love we’ve been giving them lately, there was no other choice than the Hawthorne Food Carts. (Check out their spiffy new permanent street sign.) We hit Whiffie’s again, but looked around first. I make a personal vow to try some of the other carts soon. (I’m looking at you, almost-always-open Mexican joint…)
Strange Love Live will be covered by our lovely hostess, Cami Kaos, and you can watch the fun/nonsense on the podcast coming soon. Getting there was half the fun. RadioGretchen doesn’t often drink; her ‘just the other side of tipsy’ status kept us in stitches. Mostly intentional… When she signed the guest book we couldn’t tell if she was writing or praying to the South.
When setting up for the party, there was some concern that there wouldn’t be enough booze. That turned out not to be a problem. Everyone brought two bottles of liquor. (Reminder for next year: Assign someone to bring mixer.) Morgan (?) was put in charge of fetching drinks during the podcast. (The secret code word was Swahili for vagina, I believe.) There was a lot of “take one, pass it along.” I was treated to an extensive lesson in Tiki glassware, and want one of my own ‘Baby-Eater’ glasses. More on the Baby-Eater in a few days. (This has absolutely nothing to do with you, Steph.)
I finally met author djtv, aka Theressa. We shared a couch during the SLL segment, and I accidentally grabbed her leg while digging for a microphone. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I must say, her avatar doesn’t do her justice. Rrrroarrr…
A few of the authors missed the anniversary, but made it to SLL. The elusive Endless Monkeys arrived with an armful of cookies and bourbon. You are a good student, Greg. One can never have too much bourbon and cookies. The bourbon went into my pocket, for medicinal purposes. (Call me the Kentucky doctor: I’ll give you a shot!) Even though I drank nothing stronger than h20 all night, it was comforting to have around. I’m still a drunky crow at heart.
What better way to keep me amused than to give me the car keys, right? I turned Betsy’s Kia into the OurPDX Clown Car. After the podcast, several of us migrated to Sellwood, where friends of the blog were hosting karaoke night. I figured we’d bring the funny, but had no idea how much, um, talent our little group had.
Dieselboi kicked it off with a bring-down-the-house version of Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love. Oh…my…gawd! Equal parts Paul Rogers and Sully from Godsmack, he put it all out there on the very first song. He probably sounds like a twelve-year-old girl with tonsilitis today.
OurPDX’s queen bee, Ms Betsy, sang a Partridge Family song. She’s a proud David Cassidy fan. Worship them while they’re still with us, hon.
RadioGretchen, who by now was giggly and dancing to imaginary beats, was next. Everyone was watching, like the train wreck you can’t look away from. When she said she was going to sing a tribute to Michael Jackson, we all groaned.
And then something magical happened. She donned the glove sitting on the pillow next to the stage, grabbed the mike and laid out a note-perfect rendition of One More Chance. Wow. It was like there were ghost-Jacksons singing backup. I will forever resist the urge to prejudge a karaoke singer after that.
Since we were honoring dead celebrities, Dieselboi got the unintentional last word when he sang a tribute to David Carradine. The song? One Night in Bangkok.
We dumped RadioGretchen off on her doorstep about 3 AM, then stopped at Voodoo 2 for the driver’s reward: a Memphis Mafia. The bottle of bourbon made it home untouched, although I almost broke it pulling it out of the trunk. (Sober or not, it’s just dumb to drive around with an open pint in your pocket.) I gave it a good home, and will use it toward my own devious purposes one of these days.
In all, it was great fun. Check out our episode of Strange Love Live. We’re a goofy bunch, and we do it all for you…
Comments on this entry are closed.