It Takes Two (Wheels) to Tango

Portland is a lot like Camp Granada: They say we'll have some fun if it stops raining.

And this weekend, it/we did.

We *could* have had our fun at Portland's Pride Festival. But that seemed a little mainstream.

Bear in mind, the Cheez and I did live in West Hollywood for six years.

(and when I say "bear" I do mean this guy:



No, wait, I mean *this* guy:

)

(note to self, where do you place the ")" to close a parenthetical statement that ends with a photo of a topless hairy gay dude? That's an issue they didn't cover in my high school copy of Funk & Wagnalls)

So anyhow, instead Cheez and I did something utterly Portland: Pedalpalooza. Which, if you are too lazy/cautious/immobilized-by-your-mobile-device to click the link, is a two-week festival of biking events in and around Portland. This being Portland, "bike events" can mean things you never dreamed. Mostly soggy things.

But not this:


Yes, bike tango.

The ride met up in Jamison Park, then we biked with tango music blaring (okay, maybe that's not such a big deal) and with portable ballroom dance floor (okay, definitely that is a big deal, albeit one disassembled and folded into neat stacks, then loaded onto a damn sturdy bike trailer) to the waterfront, assembled the floor, and Cheez and Macaroni got their first ever tango lesson.

If you are looking for my usual bike in that film, note that for Sunday at least the leopard had changed her spots, and Cheez and I were riding the tandem.

Because when we left the house, he misheard and thought I'd said we were going on the tandem ride, not the tango ride.

Of course, it takes two to tandem. And to tango. And in fact it took two tandems to tango ride, because another couple showed up on tandem for the same ride.

This is, after all Portland. In any group of forty people, you will find at least 4 (aka two sets of) tandem riders.

Reminds me of the Kinsey report statistic that 10% of the population is gay.

Of course, that was only a general estimate.

In West Hollywood, it was slightly higher, maybe 110%.

In Portland, the lesbian moms also throw the statistic off in terms of 10% homo. But at 4 out of 40 we are certainly 10% bi squared, as in bi-seated bi-cycles.

In other news, I also had a piece in the New York Times this weekend. Because, as usual, war profiteering is breaking news.

Even if it's Civil War profiteering.

But the real news that's fit to upload is in this tango video:

Yes, catch the woman wearing red lacy peds.

Sexy peds, people. Who knew?

I can just imagine Allan Sherman commemorating it in song:
You remember
little Stacey
She's sporting peds that
are red n lacy
on the dance floor
quite a sight
but now the dance floor's
loaded on her bike.


Fun when it stops raining indeed.

Mishpucha at the Movies

I have some news.

It has taken me quite a while to blog it.

Now the news is so old it's almost retro.

I have a job.  

A full-time, go to the office five days a week job.  

I had heard about these things,  but I never thought it could happen to me.

Farewell FurryCon, and Winkel in my eye, and all the other strange adventures of being self-employed.

The new job is very nice.  Everyone there is very nice.  Welcome to the family, people keep saying.  

Because apparently family is an indication of a warm workplace.  So long as you don't happen to be a Soprano, a Corleone, or have a family like mine.

Most people, upon landing a new job, might take a week off and go on an exotic tropical vacation, perhaps indulge themselves with a major purchase like a fancy new car.

The Macaronimaniac version of this Bermuda and a Beemer indulgence, alas, turned out to be spending the weekend in San Francisco hanging out with my college roommates, and treating myself to a new used Schwinn off Craigslist.

Yes, I am now such a bike geek, I am keeping a spare bike in another city.  

It is a little like having a mistress.

A maroon, ten-speed mistress whose tires could use a little air.

Okay, so maybe it's nothing  like having a mistress. 

It is a lot like having a method of transit to whisk yourself around the city, which is what college roommate Little Orphan Annie and I did, that one glorious Friday of her playing hookie from work and me not having started my new job yet.

We were so wild and out of control, we decided to go see a film right in the middle of the day.

Specifically, the new Coen brothers film.

Only problem, when you go to see a Jewish movie during the day, i.e. when they are not charging full price for the tickets, you are pretty much asking for it.

It being, having two AKs sitting behind you.  

(Note to my goyishe readers:  If you don't know what the AK in the previous sentence means, suffice it to say, 47 is about 20 too short.  If you still have no idea what in the name of Yiddishkeit I'm talking about, read up on it here).

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of amusing lines in the new Coen brothers film.  I just didn't need to hear them in surround sound--first from the screen, then repeated by Siskel and Eberg in the row behind us.

Welcome to the Mishpucha.

Spotted at the Performing Arts Festival

Quiz:
What is the most striking element of this picture?

Answer: It's that in the three weeks since I leopardize my bicycle, no one has noticed it.

Well, no one except several homeless people, various of whom have commented positively as I rode by them.

This kind of hurt my pride.

And here I mean the vanity kind of pride, and not the pack of wildcat kind of pride. I'm pretty sure there is not yet a pride of leopard-bike riders in town. But it's Portland, you never know.

I even put in extra miles on the bike, shlepping all over to see TBA events. And by TBA events, I do not mean Traditional Birth Attendant. It's not that I don't know nothin about birthin babies. It's that I know this much about birthin babies: I have no damn desire to be doing it.

I mean Time Based Art, Portland's performing arts festival. Where you can see such inspired creativity as this:

Those are not hip artists doing performance art. It is a bunch of art lovers trying not to drop dead from the heat while sitting in Pioneer Courthouse Square on a ninety degree day, waiting for the performance art to start.

Here are the hip artists:
Or are they here?No, wait, right here! Here is art happening:Not the dude with the Free Hugs sign. He's just a random freak.  Not unlike Bovine of Arabia in the picture above.

The artists are the two short guys, who are part of a theater troupe called Back to Back Theatre (wily buggers, since they are actually pretty much belly to belly in this shot).  Back to Back features actors with disabilities, who perform plays in public spaces.

Spaces that happen to be filled with other people.  And, in this case, with tents, balloons, and free huggers (which now that I think of it are perhaps an inevitable  product of cross-pollination between Portland institution of free box and Portland infestation of tree huggers).  

The point is, none of this stuff was put there by the troupe.  They're just a handful of actors, performing without stage sets or extras.  Or performing with whatever stage sets and extras happen to turn up.

Part of the audience experience for me was watching everyone else in Pioneer Courthouse Square, to see whether they noticed the show.  Which most of them didn't.  Which is a great comment on how much human drama is going on around us all the time, and how oblivious we often are to the emotional struggles and triumphs of our fellow human beings.

Not everyone, of course.  You could see that too:  every so often, someone in the crowd would happen upon the actors and totally notice them.  Go up to them.  Maybe even try to talk to them.

There's a word for these kind of people.

Homeless.

That was my biggest epiphany while watching the play:  we middle class people spend a lot of the time that we are in public space trying to keep our focus as narrow as possible.  Trying not to notice anything that seems a little weird.  Definitely not stopping to soak it up or communicate with the person involved.   Anything too weird might sully us. Or sully our sense of safety.  Or our sense of entitlement.

Homeless people, by contrast, keep their eyes open for anything that might be going down. Might be a boon to them.  Might be a threat to them.  Might just be an animal print-decorated amusement to them.  That's why they're voted Mostly Likely to Notice My Bike.

My second biggest epiphany while watching the play is that their is a reason paper hats have not caught on as a long-term millinery medium.  And it's not just that it's hard to adorn them with cat ears.

Eat Your I ♥ NY Out

You know how sometimes, though you've eaten enough, and maybe more than enough, you just can't help but go back for more?   Even though you are already really, really, really full, and whatever else you intake is just going to make you feel sick? 

(If you have no idea what I am talking about, you clearly are not Jewish.  Not even a little bit,  three generations back, on your father's side)

Well, that going back for more even though you have clearly already had too much—that's what I did last week.

With the whole city of New York.  

Yes, I (swine) flew back from the Big Apple in May, then turned right around in June and took another bite.

And lest you think gluttony was my only indiscretion, I also am guilty of balling students. Plural, I know, how bad is that?  Older.  Younger.  Male.  Female.  How can MacaroniManiac do such things?

I'd like to blame it on the Martinis, and the Mets.

The Martinis being the Pink Martinis, who were playing Carnegie Hall.  And the Mets being the baseball team that even though I grew up thirty miles from Shea stadium, I'd only gone to see twice in my entire life, until a certain Joey Smallwood-wannabe convinced half of Portland to trek across the continent to celebrate his birthday.  

And while we were in the neighborhood, I figured we might as well have a knish.

(for those of you who do not order your meals with a side of Maalox, let me just explain that knish is a two-syllable word, beginning with a hard "k" and ending with the most nostalgic case of heartburn)

So between attending the swanky concert and the soggy ball game, I took a passel of Portlanders and their stray pals on a nosh n shlep of ethnic eats across lower Manhattan.  

It was a light midday grazing, at least by Jewish standards:

• three flavors of falafel    
• north Asian dumplings  
• arepas (for the Maalox-swillers in the audience, arepas are like an Andean hamantaschen.  Except they're made with corn meal instead of white flour.  And savory rather than sweet filling.  And not meant to be reminiscent of chewing anyone's body parts.  In other words, nothing like hamantaschen)
• kasha knish 
• the world's greatest doughnuts (listen, when you live with a Canadian, doughnuts count as ethnic food)
• and the piece de resistance: takoyaki, just like Mama used to make.  

Provided you had the kind of Mama who'd whip up octopus balls whenever you needed a nosh.

Perfesser, will this be on the test?

Only on the taste test, Joey, only on the taste test.

I did enjoy the food.  And the concert (despite lack of martinis in liquid form).  And the fact that the baseball game ended early due to rain.  

Still, I was glad to get back to Portland.  Where, while you can't just walk from arepas to octopus balls, you can bike to almost anything, (including to the annoyance of snobby New Yorkers, who can damn well kiss my hot knish).  

And so, home from having octopus ball-ed Joey Smallwood,

 I proceeded to hop on my favorite two-wheeled conveyance to seedball the city.

Seedballing being not, as the picture on the right might suggest, a chocolatey snack,  albeit still a quintessentially Portland pursuit.

in which a woman who proudly boasts of wearing vegan shoes (you can always tell a Reed graduate) instructs a gaggle of do-gooders in the ins-and-outs of guerilla gardening.

Because while we may not have anything as fancy shmancy as New York's new High Line way out here in provinces, we do have a bunch of high on life along with, well, let's just say that what that vegan shoe trods upon is not the only grass to be found in Colonel Summers Park young persons, willing to flout the law just to make the flowers bloom.

So yes, I've been balling my students.  

And spreading my seed.  

But still, there are worse crimes to commit.

Like having that second donut.  

Forget the Martinis and the Mets.  I'm going to blame it on the Canadian version of the Twinkie defense.

Host Can Also Mean the Thing Off Which the Parasite Feeds

Dear Native People of Hawaii,

Just wanted to say sorry.

I don't just mean for how our country colonized yours. Stole your land. Exploited your natural resources. Decimated your national sovereignty. Subjugated your people. Made that Brady Bunch episode in which your islands seem to be a source of greater tabu than even polyester flares.

All that was bad stuff. But I knew we'd done it. This weekend I learned of an even greater evil we have visited upon you and your beautiful home.

Self-righteous, self-proclaimed hippies.

The ones who refer to a five-week vacation as a spiritual journey.

Sure, just like the souvenir shop is the Stations of the Cross and my spoon collection is Holy Communion.

Back in April, my squeeze the Cheez and I caught a couchsurfing wave in Rotterdam (not usually known for hanging-ten). So when someone contacted me on couchsurfing and asked us to host them, it seemed karmically correct to say yes.

Until I found out he was a clown. Worse than that, he turned out to be one of those guys in his mid fifties who's all about embracing the universe. Particularly, it seems, embracing women somewhat younger than himself, given the Grecian formulaing of his hair.

We invited Bozo and his traveling companion, who had just arrived in Portland the night before (and thank heavens had opted for a week-long sublet somewhere in lieu of a couple nights on our couch), over for brunch. When I asked over the phone if they had any food needs, Bozo said We only eat healthy food.

I meant, do you have any restrictions? Like, do you eat eggs? I said.

We do if they're healthy eggs he answered. Whew, good thing he told me that. We had a whole carton full of salmonella eggs we were going to serve. We'll just put those aside for when people we actually know and care about are coming over.

Within about thirty seconds of their arrival, the Cheez and I had both taken a distinct dislike to Bozo. I distrust tanned people Cheez whispered to me. Not brown people. Not black people. Just tanned people.

Bozo was tan because a year ago he made his life's spiritual quest to move to Hawaii. Now, after a year, it turned out Hawaii wasn't right. Because apparently in Hawaii you actually have to trim the flora and clean up the poop from the fauna. How could a spiritual paradise be so damn full of nature? Oh, and the jobs don't pay as well as he'd like.

Thus, he was checking out Portland.

It was a beautiful day here in Portland. So I made a point of mentioning the rain as often as I could. I believe I mentioned the early February suicide rates. More than once.

But really it was the mid-June homicide rate that was the risk.

We need someplace where we can be artists and activists Bozo proclaimed. Then he took his juggling balls into the backyard while we cooked his meal, served his meal, then cleaned up after his meal.

There have been many occasions when I have wanted to separate a man from his balls, but never more so than with Bozo.

After brunch, we headed out for a bike ride. Cheez and I took our tandem, lending Bozo and his friend our commuter bikes.

I'm sorry we don't have extra helmets, we said.

I don't wear a helmet. God is my insurance. Bozo said. We could only wonder who the actuary was that penciled out that policy.

Your third gear doesn't work Bozo informed Chuck. This apparently is Hippie for I cannot figure out how to work this mechanism. Rather than ask for help, I will declare it defective.

We took them through many lovely neighborhoods. In the spirit of art and activism, they inquired diligently about the real estate prices. Bozo also insisted there was some special deal chocolate he needed, so we took them to the local health food supermarket. After interrogating several staff members, he turned to his traveling companion and snortled Can you believe it? They don't have any raw cacao.

Yeah, but now that you're here, we've got a heap of steaming fresh kaka.

Bozo was subtle. He hinted that he wanted us to give him our bike map by saying it sure would be great to have that bike map.

I told him we'd take him to Powells where he could buy a map. Cheez showed him the map rack. He bought a bike map. He asked Cheez to show him where all the health food stores were. But when Cheez pointed them out, he complained that the streets were hard to find.

Because of course the bike map highlights bike routes. Not big commercial streets.

You know how sometimes when you have spent the day with your young niece and nephew, you are in the habit of having to sometimes remind your interlocutors We say please when we want something or We say thank you when someone gives us something or We look with our eyes, not our hands or You are being a real whiny shit, cut it out.

Well, that's not how it was with Bozo. Because it wasn't sometimes that he forgot those things. It was freakin' constantly.

You are a very patient woman I told Bozo's traveling companion during a private moment at the end of the afternoon. That is non-Hippie for This guy is a rude, selfish jerk, and honey, you can do better.

To which she responded, He's such a great guy. I've been in love with him for two years. But he says I don't have my stuff together enough for us to be a couple.

To which I responded, You are beautiful, warm, caring, and thoughtful, and honey, you can do better. That is an alternative non-Hippie way to say This guy is a rude, selfish jerk, and honey, you can do better.

We hugged. She cried. Then I read her the essay about my crazy family that I'm going to be reading on Live Wire this coming week.

We sent them on their way and made sure to double-lock the door.

And, as much as I feel bad for all the crap we've done to the people of Hawaii, I really hope Bozo stays in their time zone, and keep his rubber nose and oversized clown sandals out of mine.

It's a Small World Cafe After All

It is gray and rainy.

I rode my bike to a client meeting.

Life as usual for me - EXCEPT it is happening in Amsterdam rather than Portland.  

But aside from everyone speaking Dutch and being taller and blonder than usual, how different is Amsterdam?

Here are some clues from my first few days here.  

One of my colleagues left some peanut butter in the fridge during a recent visit.  It was very confusing because I could not tell if the expiry date of 02.08.08 meant "February 8, 2008" or "August 2, 2008."

I was in a quandary until I remembered:  I pay absolutely no attention to expiry dates.  So I ate the peanut butter.  

That which does not kill us can be used to make a tasty sandwich, as Nietzsche said (I believe he said this right around lunchtime).

I took a walk just after arriving.  As I passed this van, I noticed two naked people in the front seat having sex.  

Which seemed odd inasmuch as if you have a panel van, you might perhaps duck into the back for a bit more privacy.  Or at least they might go for a tasteful bumper sticker.  Don't come a-knockin when the van is geslacht-in.

But who wants an infernal combustion engine?  I needed to buy a used bike. I shopped at several fiets winkelen, and if you happen to be in the market, I highly recommend Otto Fiets on Overtoom.  As the salesguy was showing me fietsen, I told him my brother repairs and sells bikes.  "I hope you will treat me just like your sister," I said.

"I have no sisters," he said.  

"I am the sister you never had," I promised.

"I have four sisters.  All older.  You are not missing anything," his colleague, who turned out to be Edwin Otto, owner of Otto Fietsen, told us.

I ended up with a Batavus, which is a very respected Dutch brand of bikes.  The model I got is the Navajo, apparently the lost tribe of Dutch bike builders.  Turquoise is the new Titanium, I guess.  The bike cost 150 Euros.  The bike lock cost 39 Euros.  Quite a bargain when you consider the lock weighs about as much as the bike.

  

The Dutch love to bike.  This is historically true - after invading, one of the first restrictions the Nazis placed on Jews was forbidding them to ride those bitchin' oma fietsen around town. 

These days, you can see an entirely family of four on a single bike, mother pedaling three kids along.  This is the mini-van of the Netherlands (kids go in the basket):

And just like any minivan, it is littered with kid-shlepping detritus.

Once I had my new used fiets, I was free to roam the city soaking up culture.  

I learned from a listing in Amsterdam Weekly that there was a special exhibit here this week on my fave nation, Canadia. 

As you can see, they got the finest graphic designers in the frozen north to create the program.  

The Saturday evening event was advertised as an opportunity for "learning all about the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, alternative uses for money, and our unique Parliamentary structures for authority."   In fact it was three Canadian dudes conning a bunch of women into playing quarters.

They were clever lads, but not ultimately successful in the art of seduction.

The fake woods with maple syrup tapping and make-out tent was, though underutilized, a nice touch.  

Canadia was just my first meta-international experience in Amsterdam.  Sunday I went to A Small World Cafe to meet a client, Sofie, for a fabulous late lunch.  

The Small World Cafe is an Amsterdam institution. The owner is Australian.  The staff on Sunday was Minnesotan, English, and Israeli (one of each).  When Sofie was ordering, the Israeli woman behind the counter said, "Are you Israeli?  Because I hear you have an accent, and I am speaking to you in English, but maybe we could both speak Hebrew?"  

Sofie confessed she is not Israeli.  "People here ask me all the time if I'm Israeli," she told me.  "I feel bad when I have to admit I'm actually German."

"Yeah," I said, "it's sort of the opposite of Israeli."

I tried to cheer Sofie up by telling her the Small World Cafe reminded me of the bagel store where I worked when I was in high school.  "I was actually the only Jew there.  Everyone else was Italian."

"There are a lot of Italians in New York?" she asked.

"Yeah, my town was basically half Italian, half Jewish.  We're very similar.  A lot of guilt, a lot of food.  When you'd meet someone, you'd say 'Which are you?'  Because we all kind of looked alike, dark hair, big noses."

Sofie laughed at that, which I thought was nice.  As Anne Frank, SuperJew of Amsterdam, might have said had she been there with us, "Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.  And these muffins, they are even better."